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Story OF Jonah 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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TO ALL 
YOUNG PEOPLES' SOCIETIES AND TO ALL OTHER FRIENDS 

Who love truth in simple garb, 
Wlio wish to live right always, 
And who admire 

The marvellous Power, 

The Peerless Patience and 

The Matchless Mercy 

Of a Wonder-working. 

PROVIDENTIAL RULER AND GUIDE, 
These chapters are most humbly, yet respectfully, dedicated by 
THE AUTHOR. 



The Story of Jonah, 

THE TRUANT PROPHET. 
TOLD FOR ITS PRACTICAL LESSONS, 



-BY- 



Rev. J. S. Boyd 



Author of ''the Significancy of Names," "Every Family Apart, 
''The Lost Ship and Other Poems," Etc. 

With a large part of one chapter by 
REV. H. CLAY TRUMBULL, D. D., LL. D. 

These lessons thou dost give [X 

To teach me how to live, 

To do, to bear, 

To get and share, 

To work and play. 

And trust alway. 

— Maltbie D. Babcock. 



THE JOURNAL PRINTING CO., 

KiRKSVILLE, Mo, 



LiSRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Gooies Received 

MAK 22 1909 

Copyrttfnt £ntry 
CLASS CU ^^^ ^°' 

■2.3^3^0 

COFY a. 



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FOREWORD 

Are any troubled about the inspiration of the book of Jonah, and 
the authenticity of the narrative? It is hoped such may find some 
help from the present chapters, which have been penned in simple 
form for young friends and for busy people who must necessarily read 
hurriedly. 

Most of the uncredited quotations that the reader ma}^ note, were 
borrowed either directly, or at second hand, from the work of Dr. 
Pusey, which abounds in material gathered from the Christian Fathers 
and many varied sources. 

Sincere and grateful acknowledgment is made of the kindly courtesy 
of the late Rev. H. Clay Trumbull, D. D., LL. D. and his publishers, 
Messrs. J. D. Wattles & Co., for permission to use the long and valu- 
able extract found in Chapter XIV, and which, it is believed, contains 
matter entirely, or quite new to most readers. 

If what is here written shall in any measure prove helpful to any, 
in strengthening faith in God; faith in the inspiration of the Holy 
Scriptures, especially this part of them; and faith in our precious Saviour 
who was, in various points, so strikingly typified by Jonah; the writer 
will gratefull}^ consider that ample reward has come to his humble, 
yet willing and glad labor. 



s ^ COMMENDATORY 



^ 



UUMMUJW 

P Minneapolis, Minn., May 11, 1907. 

My Dear Brother Boyd : — 

I have completed the reading of your Manuscript, The Story of 
Jonah, and think the treatment excellent — ^well worth publishing. It 
will fill an important place in the "side light" literature which helps 
to a correct understanding of the word. 

Hoping that you may be able to send this message out to the 
""reading world at an early date and believing that it will be well received, 
I am Very truly yours, 

A. B. MARSHALL, Pastor First Presbyterian Church. 

I have read The Story of Jonah with unusual interest. Through 
personal acquaintance with the author. Rev. J. S. Boyd, I am assured 
of his eminent fitness for the writing of such a book, by reason of his 
ripe scholarship and experience, and his former successful authorship. 
He has opened some new pathways of thought on what we sup- 
posed to be beaten ground. His style is clear, yet racy, and his thought, 
strong. The book will be a welcome addition to any library, and will 
command the increasing interest of every reader. 

W. A. Pringle, 
Professor of Literature, Red River Valley University. 
* * * 
To Whom it May Concern: — 

I have examined hastily the work of Rev. J. S. Boyd entitled '' The 
Story of Jonah." 

I would be glad to see this work in the hands of both the ministry 
and laymen of our beloved Church. 

The book of Jonah has been made the target of attack by the anti- 
supernaturalists everywhere, and I helieve the present defense is 
strong against all such. 

It is also, in an attractive way, expository, as the salients points 
are brought out under the different heads discussed. 

Rev. J. S. Boyd is an ardent champion of the Word of God in it's 
purity and his messages will be refreshing to the Church. 

Knowing the author personally I shall feel deeply interested in 
the publication of the work. 

I feel interested also because it is a timely work and well suited 
to the needs of this age. Very sincerely, 

F. E. SPRINGER, 
Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, CaldweU, Idaho. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter. Page, 

Foreword 4 

Commendatory 5 

I. The Book 9 

II. The Man 17 

III. Called 25 

IV. Truant 33 

V. Bestormed 43 

VI. Overboard 55 

VII. Swallowed 65 

VIII. Unharmed 77 

IX. Praying 87 

X. Scriptural 97 

XI. Delivered 105 

XII. Preaching Ill 

XIII. Effects 119 

XIV. Why Effective? 131 

XV. Displeased 143 

XVI. Disciplined 155 

XVII. The Purpose of It All 167 



The Book 



The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, 
and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, 
and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. — Matthew 12:41. 

No other book so threatened and assailed; 
Surviving as no other all the stern 
And varied exigence of time and change, 
From out the crucial test it comes sublime. 
Bearing its own credentials; impregnable. 
It meets unmoved the fury of the storm. 
And stands majestic in the might of truth. 

— Jennie Blakeslee Richards, on the Bible. 



I. 
THE BOOK 

Of no portion of the Scriptures have opinions been more varied 
than about the book of Jonah. No part of the Bible has been more 
opposed, no part more argued against. 

Back in the early centuries of the Christian era the book was 
made the subject of banter and ridicule by the Pagans, who accused 
the followers of Christ of great credulity in believing the story of a 
man being saved from the deep by a fish. 

In modern times, too, the same spirit has been shown by the ene- 
nfiies of revelation; while pretended friends, by their "sapping arts 
of anti-supernaturalism, " have pursued methods that would not only 
put the book totally out of the canon of Scripture, but, if applied in the 
same way to other inspired writings, would blot from them much 
that is strictly historical in its import, and leave sincere seekers after 
God's truth to wander unguided in the fields of mere conjecture and 
fable. 

Several early writers hold to the idea that all that is narrated in 
the book was transacted in a dream. Others, with great learning, 
but "with extrava^gant license of imagination, have insisted that the 
book is an historical allegory. They try to persuade us that, although 
Jonah was a historiacl personage, yet he was, in this writing, symbolical 
partly of Manasseh, and partly of Josiah, kings of Judah;that the 
ship was the Jewish state; that the storm was the political convulsions 
which threatened its safety; that the master of the ship was Zadok, 
the High Priest; that the great fish was the city of Lybon on the 
Orontes, where Manasseh was detained as prisoner; and that other 
fancied similarities are a part of the true explanation of the book. 

Other writers, mostly German mystics, have argued that the 
book is a parable, a moral fiction, or a myth. 

Another class, while admitting an historical basis, hold that it 
has been clothed in its present dress in order that it might be more 
effectively used for teaching purposes. 

And still others would derive it from popular tradition, tracing 
it to the fable of the deliverance of Andromeda from a sea monster 
by Perseus; or to that of Hercules, v/ho, as Greek writers tell us, in 
order to save Hesion from a great sea-serpent, or fish, to which she 
was devoted by her father, Laomedon, leaped armed into the great 



10 The Story of Jonah. 

monster's mouth, and was three days in its belly before accomplish- 
ing its death. 

Now, some of these writers have not a few points in common with 
each other. Their differences, however, are ver}^ many and most 
essential; while they all frankly acknowledge the great difficulties 
which beset the subject. Very evident, therefore, is it that no certain 
standing ground can be found in an}' one of all these various inhar- 
monious and unsatisfactory proposed explanations. 

What, then, are we to think of the narrative of this book? Sureh' 
not what infidelity teaches. Nor 3'et what the so-called higher critics 
hold. Wc feel certain we have most ample reason for firmly main- 
taining an opinion radically different from those above named. 

Not for a mom^ent can it be admitted that the book is onl}'^ a 
dream narrative. For, first, there is not a single circumstance in the 
account that would suggest such an idea. And, second, a little exam- 
ination ^vill show that whenever any Avriter in the Holy Scriptures 
gives any account of a dream lie alwaA's states tlie fact. Moreover, 
third, the ver}- manner in wliich the book opens and closes absolutely 
precludes the idea of its being a dream, or vision. So this theory falls. 

Nor can we at all accept the idea that the booL: is merely an his- 
torical aliegor}'. And why not? For one thing, because a fair study 
of the v.ritings of those who hold this view soon makes it clear that the 
only thing suggesting the thought of aliegor}^ to them is the miracles 
in the book at which they stumble. But it is proposed to show, in its 
proper place below, that these miracles are no more marvellous than 
m.any otliers narrated in both the Old and New Testaments, and that 
therefore they form no reason for assigning an allegorical character 
here any more than in man}' other places— the account of the raising 
of Lazarus, for instance. 

Another thing, it is not found to be the custom of the sacred 
writers to niake use of m.ere portents or prodigies in their parabolic 
teaching. They invariably use facts, not fables or imaginary wonders. 
Apocryphal writings often abound in legends and marvels; the canonical 
■^ATitings never. This is a marked distinction between them. The 
inspired books never surpass the limits of the possible, or of the per- 
fectly reliable, even in their most figurative teaching. And studying 
the book of Jonah, the candid mind will surely soon perceive that the 
whole cast of the narrative is too exact, too detailed, too evidently a 
narration of facts, to be consistent with the idea of an allegory. 

And still another reason for rejecting the allegorical view is this: 



The Book. 11 

It cannot be explained wh}' the writer of an allegor}^, or a fiction, 
would choose a known prophet of God as the subject of so great mis- 
behaviour and severe disapproval. Such a writer would be free to 
choose his characters at will. And surely his purpose would be fully 
answered by using a fictitious name, or b}^ omitting the nam.e alto- 
gether. If writing an allegory he need not use a genuine name at all. 
Very strange, indeed, if he should do so. Very strange that he would 
ascribe to a real person things only imaginary and unreal. If Jonah 
did not act as this book narrates, is it not marvellous, yea, unbelievable, 
to suppose that a Jewish writer would positivelj^ say he did the things 
here -uTitten, and that afterwards the writer's fabrication should be 
adopted into the Jewish canon? We cannot for a moment conceive 
it. 

Surely, then, the theory of an historical allegor}^, insisted on by 
some, has no claim upon us. It must be considered utterly untenable 
even from a rational point of view. 

And still farther, negatively, consent cannot be given to the 
affirmation that the book is onl}" a moralizing fiction, or a myth, clothed 
and fixed up for didactic purposes; for such a position seems to be 
directly contrary to our Lord's teaching in the New Testament. 

And still yet less allowable, if any difference, is the claim that 
the narrative grew out of popular tradition. Much more likel}' that 
the fables of Perseus and Hercules x\ere evolved from the inspired 
account in Jonah. 

No, none of these several views at all satisfy the devout inquiry 
of the spiritually hungry and believing soul. A solid foundation for 
faith — one that is felt to be solid, and that alwaj^s yields conscious 
upholding like the everlasting arms underneath — must be sought 
elsewhere. 

This solid foundation we firmly believe we find in the opinion 
that gives to the book a strictly historical character. 

O here, my soul, find stable rest; 
Uncertainties no more infest 
The faith, nor sleuth-like doubts distract, 
If fable is exchanged for fact. 

Here is ground on which to stand unshaken. The book is a 
narration of facts which actually took place in the life and exper- 
ence of the prophet named. This is the position of Spirit-taught 



12 The Story of Jonah. 

faith — a position which we humbly and sincerely believe gives honor 
to the wonder-working God, and agrees with everlasting truth. 

A while ago it was asked, what are we to think about the book. 
The answer is to be found in the position just now taken. Our unwaver- 
ing thought is to be that the narrative of Jonah is a historical verity. 

Are reasons for so thinking demanded? To every sincere inquirer 
they are rightfully due, and to such it is a pleasure to give them. 
Thoughtful attention is kindly invited to those that follow. 

One reason persuading to the view advocated in this humble 
treatise is this: Ever since the days of Ezra the scribe, who collected 
the canonical writings of the Old Testament into one volume, the mass 
of Bible scholars have stoutly held to the opinion that the book of 
Jonah has a rightful place among the inspired writings. 

This fact, of course, does not settle the question. But it has 
great weight, and helps to strengthen other arguments. 

The fact that the great majority of conscientious christian scholars 
have counted Jonah true history argues strongly for this .view. These 
learned men heartily wished to be right. Unwarped by prejudice 
they sought light. Many of them had just as much acmnen and 
scholarship as any who secularize the book. It is wholly gratuitous 
to think that the H0I3' Spirit, whose guidance they sought, would 
leave them so fully, and for so many successive centuries of cumulative 
study, to error. 

It seems most reasonable, then, to earnestly maintain that an 
enlightened belief in the divine authority of the books composing 
the canon of the Old Testament scriptures most powerfully persuades 
to the belief that the narrative in this book is strictly historical in its 
character. 

Then another reason persuading to the same view is this: To the 
candid mind the book reads like history. As the exhaustive Pusey 
says: "Every phrase in it is vivid and graphic. There is not a word 
which does not advance the history. There is no reflection. All 
hastens on to the completion, and when God has given the key to the 
whole, the book closes with his words of exceeding tenderness linger- 
ing in our ears. " 

And surely, too, as the scholarly Henderson writes: "On per- 
using the very first sentence, every unprejudiced reader must con- 
clude that there had existed such a prophet, and that what follov/s 
is simply a narrative of facts. " The formula: " Now the word of the 
Lord came unto Jonah — sa3'^ing — "the very same formula that is so 



The Book. 13 

often and so commonl}- used in the other books of the scriptures in 
prefacing real prophetical communications — is here so appropriated, 
" that to put any other construction upon it would be a gross viola- 
tion of one of the first principles of interpretation." All this argues 
the book of Jonah to be real history. 

But there is higher proof yet. Let us come to Revelation. 
Its teaching is ever unerring. The authority of the Son of God is 
paramount. No discount is ever to be placed on his words. Implicit 
reliance on what he says is always the right thing. Then, with humil- 
ity, yea, even with eagerness, let us inquire: AVhat is the teaching 
of our Lord about Jonah? 

In Matthew twelfth chapter, thirty ninth and fortieth verses, we 
find it. Some of the Scribes and Pharisees asked him for a sign, that 
is, for a miracle the word means. He replies : " An evil and adulterous 
generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given unto 
it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days 
and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three 
days and three nights in the heart of the earth." 

Does our Lord here refer to an actual occurrence, or onl}'^ to an 
imaginarj'^ one? 

It is certainly true that in every other case in which he makes 
use of passages from the Old Testament to illustrate, or enforce his 
teaching, every point or circumstance in those passages has historic 
verity. He uniformly quotes and reasons upon them as true and 
universally admitted. He stamps them as such by his divine authority 
and passes them on for the confident belief of people in all the future. 

And who dare say that this reference to Jonah is an exception? 
Does it not seem to be the most reasonable thing to affirm that our 
Lord here, as every where else when he made use of Old Testament 
incidents, employed that which had actually occurred? and also at 
the same time, by his own divine authority, stamped the incident as 
true? 

So humble faith believes. The Divine Saviour endorses the narra- 
tive in Jonah as authentic. He sanctions the overwhelming christian 
belief that there was a real prophet Jonah, who really experienced 
what is told of him. He affirms positively "he was three days and 
three nights in the whale's belly. " And from this he draws an exact 
parallel of what would ere long befall himself. 

But the words the Saviour uses in the next sentence very plainly 
emphasize this view, and indubitably enforce it beyond all cavil. 



14 The Story of Jonah. 

He goes on to say in the f ortA'-fii-st verse : " The men of Nineveh shall 
rise in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because 
they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than 
Jonas is here. " 

What a wonderful verse this is! It is full of thrilling meaning. 
Was it the intention that it should be understood? Surely, yes. 
But is it possible to understand it at all on the mere non-historic 
theory of the narrative about Jonah? 

To know the intent and the teaching of tliis text, vivid thought 
must be had of the time and the occasion on which it was uttered, and 
also of the Teacher and those he was teaching. Jesus was that day 
speaking words of solemn warning. He was to be the future Judge 
of v.W men. At that Great Day he shall sit upon the throne of his 
glory, and all nations shall be gathered to judgment. He has the 
whole scene vividly before his own mind. He wishes to put it vividly 
before the minds of his hearers. How will he do this? Will he do it 
by referring to a mythical writing — a writing that he, being divine, 
knows to be only a myth? Surely, he will not make his best impression 
that way. And surely, too, he will not so trifle with his hearers as to 
try to impose on them as true that which he himself knew to be only 
UNREAL and IMAGINARY. No, wc cauuot conceive of our Lord, at 
such a time, and for the high purpose he then had irk mind, using that 
which was only a m3'th. 

Nor can it reasonably be supposed that he drew his illustration 
from what he positively knew to be only allegory. If he did, then, in 
that case, the men of Nineveh are only imaginary people, Jonas is an 
imaginary personage, his preaching is imaginary, and their repentance 
imaginary. 

And what would this mean? It would mean that the Lord of 
heaven, the God-Man, Christ Jesus, who was the Truth, who was divine 
and knew the past as well as the present and the future — it would 
mean that such an One as he solemnly declared tiiat "the fictitious, 
unreal and non-existent characters of a parable shall actually be 
arraigned at the same bar with the living men of that generation. " 

Surely the prayerfullv thoughtful will draAv back from a teaching 
like this. We cannot believe that the Lord Jesus, in any sense or 
measure, countenanced the idea that the book of Jonah was either 
myth, parable or allegory. Tlie reasonable thought about it seems 
clearly to be that it is actual history. 

Observe closely; our Lord, at the time, T\-as using vrords to make 



The Book. 15 

some of the doings of the judgment day intensely real. So he posi- 
tively informs his audience, not of mythical, but of real persons, who 
will be there. As if he had said: "There were veritable men of 
Nineveh. There was :i real prophet Jonas who preached to the people 
of that great cit}*. His hearers actually repented. Moreover, the}' 
will all m-ost certainly appear at the future judgment. All the present 
generation will just as certainly appear there at tiie same time. Yea, 
the real men of Nineveh will assuredl}' rise in the judgment at the 
same time with you. And it will then be made indubitable clear that 
the men of Nineveh genuinely repented at the preaching of a preacher 
undeniably inferior, to the One who now declares the truth to you, who 
j'et remain impenitent. 

The contrast at that day will be marked and impressive. This 
generation had a greater preacher than the Ninevites; it had indis- 
putabh' more frequent and more divine preaching, 3'et it profited not. 
So the very course and conduct of the people of Nineveh, with their 
meager privileges and advantages, will actually be a condemnation 
of the course and conduct of the people of this generation, who have 
had, and novr have, vastly superior privileges and advantages. The 
people of Nineveh repented a,fter one day's preaching of just one truth 
by an unv.-illing prophet. The men of this generation did not repent 
after the repeated preaching of richly varied truths by Him who came 
willingly from heaven to do the will of heaven; v/ho spake as man 
never spake; and whose living word is the very law of earth, and of 
heaven too. " 

Having, then, all these considerations before our minds, it seems 
indisputably clear that the book of Jonah can only be regarded as a 
narrative of incidents that realh' occurred. We believe our Blessed 
Lord so endorsed it, and, therefore, we are so to understand it. 

As we, then, after first invoking the Holy Spirit's gracious aid, 
proceed to consider the chief points in the varied career of this strangely 
behaving Old Testament character, let us do so assured, from what 
Ave have seen in the discussion thus far, that he, as the v>Titer of this 
l:)Ook, was indeed a prophet inspired, and that the book called by his 
name is veritable history. 

So we may expect to be profited. So, we believe, God will be 
honored. Amen. 



The Man 



18 The Story of Jonah. 



According to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake 
by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, 
which was of Gath-hepher.— II Kings 14:25. 

For my own part, if my pocket was full of stones, I have no right 
to throw one at the greatest backslider on earth. I have either done 
as bad or worse than he, or I certainly should if the Lord had left me a 
little to myself; for I am made of just the same materials; if there be 
any difference, it is wholly of grace.— John Newton. 



n. 
THE MAN. 

His character claims a first word. Then some outgoings of his 
character as they appear in the incidents of the narrative bespeak 
attention. 

Like many another frail mortal Jonah was self-willed. The story 
shows him playing the child. He sulked, was petulant, wanted to 
have his own wa}^, was determined to have it, especially when the Lord 
called him to a duty he disliked. Children are often wayward without 
reason. Jonah, shirking, was not unlike them. He could only be 
called strong in the sense of being headstrong. He tried to take things 
in his own hands; thought he could only be happy in so doing; but 
found, as all other like behaving people do, that this only brought him 
into trouble and made him unhappy. He soon discovered that kick- 
ing out of the traces is no mere diversion, and that, although playing 
at it may momentarily gratify an ugly temper and show dissatisfac- 
tion with plain duty, yet still greater dissatisfaction will surely soon 
follow. * 

His conduct, both before and after his mission to Nineveh, looks 
marvellously strange in the light of the high position he occupied. 
A paradox inexplicable we are forced to call him. '' A prophet of God, 
and yet a run-a-way from God. A man drowned, and yet alive. A 
preacher of repentance, and yet repining at repentance." Believing 
God would have mercy upon Nineveh, yet sitting in his booth on the 
hill overlooking the city awaiting its destruction. His conduct is a 
contradiction, an unravelable enigma, only as we know the innate per- 
verseness of the natural heart. Lacking consecration it is lawlessly 
contrary. Void of the Holy Spirit, it avoids Spirit-bidden duty. 
Having no light of love in it prompting glad obedience, it seems to take 
delight in disobedience. 

Of such sad perversity Jonah was a striking example. Once loy- 
ally exercising prophetic influence; again trying to flee it. Once called 
of the Lord, and responding; again as fully called, we see him unre- 
spondent and rebellious. Contrariety has stolen into his heart and 
made him as opposite to his former self as icy indifference is to the 
warmth of loyal affection. His mistake was he did not abide in his 
Lord. He did not cultivate piety. He did not seek divine strength 
for unpleasant duty. He did not turn to the Lord, but from him. 



20 The Story of Jonah. 

Just when he much needed God's special presence, he tried to flee 
that presence. Do we pity him? Beware lest we copy him and dis- 
honor our Lord in a like v/ay. 

But may not candor find some things calculated to soften our 
thought of the man? He did wrong, but who now-a-days has a right 
to be his judge? Let him that is without similar sin cast the first 

stone at him. 

Think of the manv advantages we have today that he did not 
have Christ had not then come. As the Great Teacher from heaven 
he had not then delivered his Sermon on the Mount, nor given his other 
full and blessedly helpful instructions. The canon of Scripture was 
then far from being completed. Jonah had only a few of the books 
of the Old Testament; none at all of the New. He had the Law and the 
Psalms the book of Ruth and parts of the Historical books, but he 
did not have the seventeen books of the Prophets, nor the four Gospels, 
nor the Acts of the Apostles, nor the twenty-one Epistles, nor the book 
of Revelation, the blessed climax of the whole. We have all these, 
and are responsible far above him and the people of his day. ''To 
whom much is given, of him will much be required. " 

Moreover, when Jonah lived the distinction between sin and the 
sinner had not been so clearly defined as it has been since. He had 
grown up with the idea that to hate sin was to hate the sinner. So most 
of the education of that day taught. David, in his devotion, had 
declared to the Lord: " I hate them that hate thee; yea, I hate them 
with a perfect hatred. " And few of the people of his time and later 
had learned that detesting sin thus was perfectly consistent with having 
pity on the persons who sinned, being kind to them, praying for them, 
and working for their good. The voice from heaven had not then rung 
out in its plea: ''Dearlv beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather 

give place unto wrath, for Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith 

the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst 
give him drink. " The Lord's people, when Jonah lived, were not out 
of the childhood of the age. The most of them had not yet got so far 
on as to do good for evil. They felt that the enemies of God and his 
people deserved neither mercy, pity or sympathy, but were only meet 
subjects for discipline, punislmient or death. 

It is true that David, the inspired author of the Psalms, httedup 
to a high plane, where justice and mercy kiss each other, had cried out 
in his lament over the waywardness of sinners: ''Rivera of waters 
run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy Law. " meamng 



The Man. 21 

God's holy precepts. But then David, full of the Holy Spirit, was 
away ahead of his age. Yery few had then attained to his spiritual 
stature. The times taught hatred to enemies, and human nature in 
most hearts prompted the same. 

Living in such an atmosphere of thought and practise as that, 
Jonah vv^as not a little imbued with the same sentiment and promptings. 
Therefore, he had a strong feeling against doing any thing to help the 
Ninevites, the known enemies of the Lord's people. Hence his naughty 
conduct. 

The lesson for us is: avoid a Jonah-character. We have advant- 
ages vastly superior to those enjoyed in the days of the Minor Prophets. 
These advantages have been given to us for use in the service of him 
who gave them. Surely we are responsible above Old Testament peo- 
ple in a very high degree. 

But we must not fail to note that, in all his sorry behaviour, Jonah 
was still a servant of the Lord. He had pitiably lost ground; was a 
backslider of a most reprehensible type; yet there were still the embers 
of grace within him, that, as soon as he came to himself, began to glow and 
warm anew toward his Heavenlj'- Friend as before. During all the 
days of his wretched disobedience the love of God was still in his heart, 
though, for the time being, covered over, smothered a,nd repressed by 
the results of his waywardness and rebellion. He had not lost salva- 
tion, but the blessed joys of it, and the manifestation of i+ because of 
his sin, just as David once did because of his. So, when the storm on 
the sea aroused him to liis senses, he at once saw his guilt, became sub- 
dued and penitent, and, still hoping in the mercj^ of God, called earnest- 
ly upon him in penitence and real worship. His true and beter self 
then beautifully appeared. No one could pray as he did, as shown 
in the second chapter of his book, unless he had been long taught of 
God, and had the love of God in his heart as a working force. 

The whole account warns us to beware of backsliding. Jonah 
was a prophet of the Lord, yet Vv'ofull}'' fell. Therefore, be ye humble. 
And be watchful against a like lapse. ''Let him that thinketh he 
standeth, take heed lest he fall. " 

We are also taught to have hope of those who do backslide. Be 
patient with them. Never give them up. Pray for them that they 
may turn again to the Lord; that, like the prodigal, each may quickly 
come to himself, and at once, spontaneously, return to his Father's 
house, to be warmed and melted again into greater love by the Father's 
overwhelming blessins. 



22 The Story of Jonah. 

But passing now to the history, we may note first, the Place of 

Jonah's home. 

Over in the old world, slumbering on the hill side about two miles 
north east of Nazareth in Palestine, lies the modern village of el Meshad. 
This quaint spot, as it is reported to be, christian travelers tell us is 
very probably the site of the ancient tovm of Gath-Hepher, the home 
of our runaway prophet. By a constant tradition from the early 
christian centuries down to the present time, his tomb is here pointed 

out. 

This makes it clear that Jonah was a prophet of the northern 
Kingdom, Israel, as Hosea and Amos, who prophesied soon after him, 
belonged to the southern kingdom, Judah. Gath-Hepher was in the 
boundaries of Zebulon, and Zebulon was one of the revolting ten tribes, 
all of whom inhabited the northern part of the country. 

But note next, the time when Jonah lived. 

In II Kings fourteen, twenty-five to twenty-seven, we read of 
Jereboam II, King of Israel, that "He restored the coast of Israel from 
the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word 
of the Lord God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant 
Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-Hepher. 
For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel that it was very bitter; for 
there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And 
the Lord said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under 
heaven; but he saved them by the hand of Jereboam, the son of Joash. " 

This text gives our prophet's father's name as Amittai, fixes his 
native place as Gath-Hepher, as already seen, and also shows that a 
prophecy of Jonah was fulfilled during the reign of Jereboam II. 

We learn, too, from these verses that the prophecy was given at a 
time when Israel was at the lowest point of depression; when her 
"affliction was very bitter;" when "there was not any shut-up or 
left"— that is, not any confined or left at large— meaning there was 
none to act as a helper to Israel. 

These particulars help to determine the time of the prophecy. 
The history given in the book of Kings shows that Jereboam's reign 
was marked by prosperity. In fulfillment of Jonah's prophecy, he 
worsted Assyria and raised Israel to her former greatness. His father 
Joash, however, who preceded him on the throne, had begun to reign 
when Israel was in subjection to Syria, and at an exceedingly low ebb 
in her history. Hence, it is very natural to credit Jonah's prophecy 
to the time of Joash, or, possibly, to the very early part of the reign 



The Man. 23 

of Jereboam, before the better times had yet appeared. In either 
case, Jonah followed close upon Elisha, who died in Joash's reign. 

Jonah was, therefore, as it seems, the earliest of the prophets whose 
utterances are collected in separate books. Hosea and Amos follow 
soon after him, or towards the latter part of Jereboam's reign, about 
eight-hundred years before Christ. The other prophets, Isaiah, Daniel 
and the rest, came later, on down to Malachai, four hundred years 
before Christ. 

As to Jonah's earlier exercise of the prophetical office, we know 
but little. We are not given the text of his prophecy about the restora- 
tion of Israel under Jereboam. Nor are we informed of any other 
prophecies he may have uttered. All we know about him is (1), that 
he was a real historic character, the son of Amittai; (2), that both Ezra 
in the Old Testament and our Lord in the New Testament call him a 
phrophet, and we must believe them; (3), that the passage in Second 
Kings tells of a prophecy of his that was, in a few years after its utter- 
ance, literally fulfilled; (4), that the book that bears his name is but one 
episode in his life experience, very probably occurring after he had 
uttered his earlier prophecies, and towards the latter part of his life; 
and (5), that his book is history rather than prophecy — not a record of 
his predictions, but an account of his experience and conduct at one 
period of his life. 

With what else occurred in his history — his other acts and exper- 
iences — and God's dealings with him at other times — ^he himself and 
the other sacred penmen have not made us acquainted. 

Most heartily, however, we ought to thank God for this one book, 
with its four short chapters, its marvellous miracles and surprising 
incidents, as well as for its multiplied practical lessons. Prayerfully, 
reverently and expectantly, let us turn to its pages and considering 
them carefully afresh, take some jottings therefrom as they arise, that 
we may, under the di\'ine favor, not only be interested anew but also 
blessedly profited. 

Treasure lies hid in this field of the word; 

Buying it nevermore sell; 
Seeking it out of this book of the Lord, 

Richly within let it dwell. 
Far a.bove rubies these golden words prize, 

Actions and thoughts to control; 
Bind them as frontlets over thine eyes. 

Laying them up in thy soul. 



Called 



26 The Story of Jonah. 



Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai 
sa}'ing: Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city and cry against it;^fo 
their wickedness is come up before me. — Jonah 1 :1,2. 

Endeavor with unruffled brow, 

And with a mind serene, 
To meet the duties of the Now — 

The Present and the Seen. 
Look before thee as thou goest, 
Do the duty which thou knowest. 
But think not thou canst live alone, 

As if all men beside 
Were pigmies round about the throne 

Of thy contemptuous pride; 
To the neighbor that thou knowest 
Do the duty which thou owest. 

— Lady Teignmouth. 



III. 
CALLED. 

This is the very first thing appearing in the record. Jonah was 
called and commissioned. He was called of God. " Now the word of 
the Lord came unto" him, says the first verse of the book. 

This is a formula often used in the Scriptures. It is the common 
introduction to messages from God to chosen messengers. These are 
the exact words that preface the prophecies of Hosea, Joel, Micah and 
Zephaniah, while other prophets, in differing terms, ascribe their 
deliverances, not to themselves, but to God. 

The formula is a promise and a proof of revelation. 

But notice another thing about it which also strengthens the evi- 
dence of its inspiration. The common translation of the word here 
rendered "now" is "and." So the literal reading is, "And the word 
of the Lord came. " 

But what is there in this fact apparently so little? Even this. 
The word "and," as all know, is equivalent to the phrase, "in addition 
to." With this very meaning it introduces Exodus, I Kings, Ezra 
and some other books, to show that their contents are added to the 
sacred writings which precede them, so as to form one continuous 
stream of history. This word, encasing a phrase, and introducing so 
many books and sections of books, serves to " string together the pearls 
of great price of God's revelations." It is used to "join on histories 
with histories, revelations with revelations," thus blending the differ- 
ent parts and books of the Holy Scriptures into one divine book. 

The prophecy of Ezekiei is a sample of this usage. Its first sen- 
tence is " and it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, 
and the fifth day of the month, as I v/as among the captives by the 
river Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." 
Here, as often elsewhere, the "and" is used with a purpose; that is, 
to connect with preceding prophecies, and with the national records 
that had gone before, just as, in all languages, the word "and" is 
employed to connect things together. 

With this important word the book of Jonah begins. . Its first 
sentence might be paraphrased: " Besides, or in addition to, the divine 
communications that came to others before him, the word of the Lord 
also came to Jonah, as foHov\'s. " So, as already noted, both the use 
of this word, and of this common form.ula in opening the book, is a 



28 The Story of Jonah. 

strong proof that Jonah w^as under the direction of God's Holy Spirit, 
and that his narrative is history and not parable. 

How thankful we ought to be for this evidence from the history 
of words and from scriptural usage. Plain it is from the very terms 
of this introductory formula that Jonah was actually called of God. 
We may not be able to tell how the word of the Lord came unto him. 
We are, nevertheless, most sure of the fact. 

But this was not the first time the word of the Lord had sounded 
in the ears of the son of Amittai. He was called to the office of prophet 
before this. God now calls him again, calls earnestly, emphatically. 
"Arise, go." The repetition of verbs denotes .emphasis. They hint 
excitement. They demand prompt action. The duty of obedience 
is a present, pressing obligation. 

Nor will any one fail to observe the service was a special one, — a 
very unexpected and unheard of one. To the prophet it clearly was 
a very unwelcome one. He exceedingly misliked it. ''Arise, go to 
Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it." He is commissioned to 
an alien nation. Other prophets had been sent to the Lord's chosen 
people. Like Daniel afterwards, and his great predecessor Elisha, 
Jonah now has his mission far beyond the bounds of his own land. He 
is commissioned to go "far off to the Gentiles," away to Nineveh, the 
capital of Assyria. 

This mission, however, was far from suiting him. His heart re- 
belled against it. But the Great Ruler of the universe, having most 
lofty purposes in mind, took his own course and not Jonah's. Having 
all the years of the future before his vision, he knew what was best for 
the Ninevites, and for the prophet, too, and for the prophet's people, 
who were to be taught a great lesson from God's mercy to this heathen 
and despised nation. So he chose his unwilling servant to what, at 
that day, was a very unusual service, viz., to go to Nineveh "and cry 
against it" that its inhabitants might have a chance to repent. 

Now it may be observed that this last statement hints an answer 
to the inquiry, why was Jonah called? The divine procedure in the 
whole case clearly intimates that there were high and benevolant 
reasons for his mission. Can an}^ fail to trace them? 

Observe, first, Israel was hardened and impenitent. For long 
years, in spite of warnings, entreaties and, at times, severe discipline 
for their sins, they had been prone to idolatry. After the revolt under 
Rehoboam, Jereboam I. set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel — cen- 
tres of worship — to keep his people, the ten tribes, from going up to 



Called. 29 

Jerusalem, in Judah, for worship. He feared that if they kept going 
back to their old surroundings, and yearly renewing former hallowed 
associations, their hearts might be won back to the house of David. 
So he appointed the city of Dan, in the north of the kingdom, and 
Bethel, at the extreme south towards Jerusalem, as places for his 
people's stated devotions. 

But the record is, "And this thing became a sin, for the people 
went to worship before" these idols. And worshipping before them, 
they were not long in losing all proper sense of the divine presence, and 
degenerating from the real worship of Jehovah to the actual worship 
of the idols. 

In love and long suffering patience God sent Elijah to win the 
people back to himself. This ardent prophet wrought many miracles, 
yet secured no abatement of the calves. 

Then Elisha, who had prayed for a double portion of Elijah's 
spirit, wa^ sent, wrought more miracles to bring the people back, 
taught the schools of the prophets, and, though much respected by 
many, and very influential, he passed away with the worship of the 
calves still practised. 

Speaking after the manner of men, The Lord marvelled. He was 
grieved to the heart. But his mercy still endured. Knowing that if 
he sent to the heathen they would repent, he chose Jonah for this 
work, and gave him his message to Nineveh, at that time the greatest 
city of the greatest empire of the world, and filled with a people hated 
by Israel above all others. He sent his servant far off to these Gen- 
tiles, in order that their prompt repentance under the first preaching 
of him, a stranger, might shame Israel his favored people, who, claim- 
ing to be God's elect, yet still remained unrepentant under the long, 
varied and oft repeated preaching, and heart-yearning entreaties, of 
their own prophets at all seasons. 

The divine purpose might be thus stated. "The children have 
not hearkened to what the Lord commanded, sending to them by his 
servants the prophets, but have hardened their necks, and given them- 
selves up to do evil before the Lord, to provoke hirn to anger, and, 
therefore, the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, saying: "Arise, 
go to Nineveh, that great city and preach unto her, so that Israel may 
be shown, in comparison with the heathen, to be the more guiltj^, when 
the heathen Ninevites shall repent, but my long favored people still 
remain in unrepentance. ' " This was one reason why God sent Jonah 
to the Ninevites — to shame and reprove Israel. 



30 The Story of Jonah. 

Another purpose : B)^ this mission the Lord meant to give a new 
proof that he was no respecter of persons, but that, as Peter long after- 
wards declared, ''in every nation he that feareth him and worketh 
righteousness is accepted of him." The repentance of these Ninevites 
at the first preaching of the prophet, a stranger to them, " was an antici- 
pator}^ streak of light ere the dawn of the full light to lighten the 
Gentiles. " It was a hint, as God meant it to be, that all nations were 
going to be included in the one family of God. Jonah's mission was an 
earnest that the gospel would be given to the heathen. Its success 
was a proof that a heathen city furnished as proper a field for the labors 
of a prophet as Israel did, and one even more hopeful in results. 

Moreover, the outcome in this case made very clear the great 
lesson, that the divine regard was not confined to the Jews alone, but 
went out to other nations, who are all under the general government 

of God. 

These divine purposes for calling Jonah to preach in Nineveh, 
were meant to clearly show that Israel's exclusiveness and uncharitable- 
ness were very \vTong, and that, at the same time, ours, if cherished, 
are just as wTong. 

But other reasons in the divine mind for this mission to Syria's 
capital were such as these: God would teach the Jews and all others 
for all time, (1), that wickedness, if persisted in, will bring condign 
punishment; (2), that God has no pleasure in inflicting such punish- 
ment, but delights in the repentance of the guilty; and (3), that if 
Pagans yield so promptly under a single prophetic message, it behooves 
those who were continually instructed by the Lord's servants to ser- 
iously reflect on the guilt contracted by refusing those servants' God- 
prompted admonitions. 

Thus high and far-reaching are seen to be the purposes of the Great 
Ruler over all in calling Jonah and sending him to preach repentance 
to the Ninevites. Surely, too, viewing the success of this holy and 
benevolent mission, well might all the Lord's professed people of that 
day, as did the Apostles and brethren later, after Peter's successful 
visit to Caesarea, exclaim in wonder and gratitude: "Then hath God 
also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." If Israel's heart 
had been right, its people would thus have adoringly praised. And if 
Jonah's heart had been riglit, he would have exulted in his mission and 
its success, instead of being so naughtily rebellious as the narrative 
shows. The next chapter will reveal his astounding course in the 
matter. 



Called. 31 

But before passing to note his conduct, take this one practical 
lesson. God is yet often calling people to special duties. His sum- 
mons comes in very clear tones to each one of us. His first call is foJ 
our love. "Son, give me thy heart." Our affection, and our full 
trust, is what our Heavenly Father wants. 

And every right prompting heart sincerely responds : 

"God calling yet! shall I not rise? 
Can I his loving voice despise, 
And basely his kind care repay? 
He calls me still, can I delay? 
God calling yet! I cannot stay; 
My heart I yield without delay; 
Vain world, farewell, from thee I part; 
The voice of God has reached my heart. " 

Then, he calls us each to service. " Go, work to-day in my vine- 
yard. " "Run, speak to that young man." 'Teach that class in the 
Sabbath School, Invite others to church and Christian Endeavor . 
Serve God in the kitchen, the school room, the store, on the farm. 
Be patient and Christ-like everj^ where and always.' It is the voice 
of God from on high — the same loving voice that called Jonah. With 
better spirit than Jonah should we ever seek the grace of prompt and 
willing obedience. Miss Havergal's sweet-worded exhortation well 
suits each child of God: 

Just to ask him what to do 

All the day, 
And to make you quick and true 

To obey; 
Just to know the needed grace 

He bestoweth, 
Every bar of time and place, 

Overfloweth. 
Just to take thy orders straight 

From the Master's own command; 
Blessed day! when thus we wait 
Always at our Sovereign's hand. 

But sometimes God's call is to suffering, disappointment, or some 
hard duty. Yet, whatever the task or the trial he sets for us, he him- 



32 The Story of Jonah. 

self is always our sufficient help in it. His own gracious word through 
Is-^iah is- '' Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for 
I Im thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will 
uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." In great 
variety of language, this promise is repeated a good many times m 
both Old and New Testament. So we need never fear to go down 
into any dark valley. Waiting on the Lord, he will strengthen our 

hearts. 

"Just to trust, and yet to ask 

Guidance still; 
Take the training, or the task 

As he will. 
Just to take the loss or gain 

As he sends it; 
Just to take the joy or pain 

As he lends it. 
He who formed thee for his praise 

Will not miss the gracious aim; 
So to day and all the days 

Shall be moulded for the same." 

Hear therefore, his call to love him, to serve him, and to endure 
hardness for him, if he wills it. "Commit thy way unto the Lord; 
trust also in him and he will bring it to pass. " 

"Sweet infinite blue o'er-arches the rain; 
Sweet infinite peace lies deeper than pain; 
A sea, ever waveless, supports the wave's strife,^ ^^ 
And God, ever changeless, this change-beaten life. ' 



Truant. 



But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the 
Lord, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish. 
So he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto 
Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. — Jonah 1 :3. 

O, Lord, I pray 

That for this day 
I may not swerve. 

By foot or hand. 

From thy command 
Not to be served, but to serve. 

And if I may, 

I'd have this day 
Strength from above 

To set my heart 

In heavenly art 
Not to be loved, but to love. 

— Maltbie D. Babcock. 



IV. 

TRUANT. 

Called of the Lord, Jonah tried to run away. He rose up to flee, 
not to Nineveh, but far off in the opposite direction. No inner wish 
prompted him to preach to the enemies of his people. He had no 
desire for their conversion. His heart was not large enough, nor 
sufficiently filled with the Holy Spirit, to want the repentance of these 
Assyrians, of whom it was already prophesied that they should subdue 
Israel. So he shrank from the duty, revolted against it, and tried his 
best to escape it. He showed cowardice, presumption, daring, guilt. 
The pressing obligation, however, he could not throw off. 

Will it be deemed a curious inquiry to ask: Was Jonah's name 
given to him prophetically? Some have so thought. The name Jonah 
means, dove. And as the first dove that went out from Noah could 
find no rest until it returned again to the ark, so Jonah could not find 
rest or safety in trjdng to get away from God. By bitter experience 
he learns in fact, in that early day, v/hat, in oiu" time, Joseph Cook 
has put in terse form, — " the way to flee from God is to flee to him. " 
To escape his frown, turn from wrong doing unto him in loving obedi- 
ence, and get his smile. Come to him for his love and protection. His 
friendship secured is safety and peace. 

But, perhaps, another hint evolves from the prophet's name. 
The dove is everywhere the emblem of ''mourning love." Jonah 
really loved his people, and grieved to do any thing for the good of 
any other nation that did not love them. Hence, in his book we find 
record of his defect, his want of trust in God, and so his unloving zeal 
towards the Assyrians whom God was to use as instruments against 
Israel. Perhaps his name hints of the character by which he was 
known, or wished to be known, among his people — one who moaned, 
or mourned, over them. 

But note next how the truant prophet's shirking was shown. He 
" rose up to flee unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord. " Liter- 
ally the words read, ''from being in the presence of the Lord." They 
no doubt mean, from being in God's presence as a servant, or minister. 
The idea can hardly be that Jonah thought he could get away from 
Jehovah altogether, or find a place where God was not. He knew 
better than that. He was no doubt familiar with David's thought in 
Psalm 139, put interrogatively to intensify the affirmation, "Whither 



38 The Story of Jonah. 

shall I go from thy spirit? and whither shall I flee from thy presence?" 
This is not what he tried to do. His attempt was to get rid of his 
office of prophet. He had been under prophetic influence before this. 
He had, metaphorically speaking, been standing before the Lord 
ready to do his bidding. But now, holding, as he doubtless did, the 
common belief of his people, that "the Shekinah does not dwell out 
of the land;" that is, believing that prophetical influence came upon 
chosen messengers only within the territorial limits of Judah and Israel, 
he tried to get beyond these limits as fast and as far as he could. Called 
to go on a mission for God many miles away to the northeast, he at 
once determines to escape to the most distant regions of the west. 
There, as he supposed, he would not be constrained to serve as a prophet. 

Unexpected frankness, too, does he show in the matter. Pettishly, 
it is clear, and yet unhesitatingly, he gives the reason for his miscon- 
duct. He much disliked his commission. In chapter four, two, he 
says to God, "was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country. 
Therefore, I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a 
gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and 
repentest thee of the evil." Knowing well God's loving kindness, 
he forecast that he would spare the Ninevites on their repentance, and 
he was hence unv/iUing to bear a message of mercy to them, first, 
because he thought the outcome would result in his being considered 
a false prophet; perhaps, in bringing punishment on him; and second, 
because these Assyrians had already made war on his people, and 
were, as he may have known, hereafter to be their conquerors. So he 
refused God's service in this particular. 

He did as men often do v^^ho dislike God's commands. He made 
prompt effort to get as far as possible away from under the influence 
of the Holy Spirit, and from the place where he could possibly fulfill 
this special command. "Arise, go to Nineveh," spake the voice of 
the Lord to him suddenly, unexpectedly. Instantly he arose. But he 
rose up, not as other prophets, to obey, but to disobey; not slovdy, 
nor irresolutely, but "to flee from being in the presence of the Lord. " 
He renounced his office; tried hard to be freed from those prophetical 
impulses with which he had not courage and faith to comply. The 
term truant, or run-away prophet, m.ay very appropriately be given 

him. 

And the steps in his truancy were taken at once. He " went down 
to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare 
thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from 



Truant. 37 

the presence of the Lord. " Joppa, now called Jaffa, was at that time 
the only port of Palestine on all the Mediterranean coast. In fact 
here was the only harbor of any note, during most of the Jewish history, 
or until Herod built the artificial port of Caesarea. 

Fifty miles from Gath-hepher off to Joppa Jonah hastened. 
Exceeding vividness marks the narrative. Jonah "rose up." He 
''rose up to flee." At once he "went down to Joppa" — the country 
descending from Gath-hepher all the way to the coast. He "found a 
ship" — perhaps searched hastily and eagerly from vessel to vessel till 
he came across this one going to that distant Spanish port right away. 
That just suited him. He engaged passage, "paid the fare, and went 
down into" the boat — into the hold, or cabin below — his purpose 
being "to go with them" — ^with the crew — officers and sailors — "unto 
Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. " He was in a great hurry 
to get away from prophetic influence, as far away as he could, to the 
very end of the known world westward. Industriously he took every 
step, until, as he supposed, he had cut himself loose from the land 
where his office bound him. 

There seemed now nothing else to do. Winds and waves would 
do the rest. He had but to be still and wait. So he thought, and at 
once went down into the ship to enjoy leisure. There his excitement 
subsiding, and reaction coming on, he was soon fast asleep — so sound 
asleep that the raging of the fierce storm that soon burst did not awake 
him. The captain of the vessel, in dire alarm had to do that, and plead 
with him to pray to his God for them in the imminent peril. 

Ah! Jonah, Jonah, God is in the boat. Even a heathen captain 
feels it. God is on the sea with you. God is in Tarshish if you go 
there. You cannot flee his presence. Nor can you escape his claim 
on your heart and life. O prophet! strangely recreant to duty, sadly 
truant to service, why, why this effrontery to your best Friend? Oh, 
how are you going to answer before assembled worlds at the great day? 
Be sure your sin will find you out. How, think you, will the Lord 
deal with you, to make you willing and obedient? O, beware, lest 
some startling measure of discipline burst soon and suddenly to send 
a shudder into your very soul. Or, what if the Lord's patience does 
not hold out, and, by a single stroke, you are summond impenitent 
to heaven's judgment? O, fleeing prophet, turn back, turn back. 
To "flee from God, flee to him." In penitence and love flee to him, 
and safety and bliss will be yours forever. 

But Jonah-truant has solemn and practical lessons for us all. 



38 The Story of Jonah. 

Note some of them. One is: Do not misinterpret Providence as 
Jonah did. That ship being there just then; being billed to sail so 
soon, to such a far away point, most likeh^ seemed to him very provi- 
dential. He would be tempted to think, surely the Lord is favoring 
my getting away, or this ship would not be here just when I needed it. 

But if Jonah thought so he was mistaken. The Lord had very 
plainly told him to go to Nineveh. Providence did not favor his 
fleeing to Tarshish, as he soon found out. The case is clear. Taking 
the rebellious man's free agency, and his present determined way- 
wardness, all into the account, Pro\adence did so overrule and order 
that he should go aboard that vessel; the purpose being, however, 
that, from experience gained there, he might be subdued, brought to 
his senses, and made willing to turn back to execute his Nineveh mission. 
Providence seemed — only seemed — to favor his self-willed purpose 
for a time. But as soon as the plan of Providence was unfolded, it 
was clearly seen to coincide with, and to strongly enforce, the word 
before spoken. 

And thus it ever is. Of nothing may we be surer than that God's 
providence and his holy word never contradict each other. The in- 
spired word says this and that. Divine Providence, rightly inter- 
preted, never says the opposite. Does the word read: ''Remember 
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy?" Neither Providence, nor the 
prompting of the Holy Spirit ever teach otherwise. 

And just so, too, with the kindred .command: "Not forsaking 
the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is. " No 
opportunity, however favorable, for strolling in parks, hunting, boat- 
ing, riding, visiting friends, doing secular work, or even over-sleeping, 
and no temptation or prompting of heart to any of these things, is to 
be considered providential, or the suggestion of the Spirit. The word 
of the Lord teaches just the opposite, and that word is our rule of con- 
duct in all cases. 

The substance of what God in his word says to us is : ' 'Turn away 
thy foot from doing thine own pleasure on my holy day, and call the 
Sabbath a delight, and the holy of the Lord, honorable. " Keep the 
day, "not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor 
speaking thine own words" during its sacred hours. So doing, blessed 

reward will follow. It is pledged from heaven. " Then will I 

cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with 
the heritage of Jacob thy father. " No christian pleasing God ever wants 
to be absent from church. When his heart is right it declares with 



Truant. 39 

David: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go unto the 
house of the Lord." "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O, Lord of 
Hosts. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of" thy 
house. "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand" elsewhere. 

Like this, too, is it in all other duties in life. No real providential 
pointing, when rightl}^ understood, ever contradicts Scripture teach- 
ing. The spoken and written word of the Lord is to be our unfailing 
guide, just as it was the rule of conduct for wayv/ard Jonah that day 
when the evil spirit in his heart led him astray. It is only the unsancti- 
fied, unconsecrated and self-deceived heart that will ever interpret 
Pro^^dence as contradicting God's command. If we strictly obey the 
written word of the Lord, we may be sure that Pro^adence will smile 
upon us in all our ways. 

Hence a closely allied lesson clearly follows. No servant of the 
Lord should ever try to shirk duty. Each of us should obey God — 
implicitly obey. Where he calls serve, and when he calls, as regularly 
as clock-work, in the church, in the family, in the closet, and out in 
society; never flinching however hard the task. Our Father's plan is 
wondrous. It is loving, "vvase, far-reaching, high and holy; will bring 
infinite glory to himself, and, followed heartily, will procure untold 
present and eternal blessing to every loving worker in his service. 

Sometimes even honest ministers of the gospel become discouraged. 
Some of them have been known to shrink from incumbent duty, and 
want to flee to other fields than those to which the Lord has called them. 
In all possible cases, however, there is more danger in disobedience than 
in obedience. "To obey is better than sacrifice," ever better than any 
thing unrequired. 

Two considerations urge to steadfastness and perseverance. One 
is, God can arrest his fugitive by storms from without, or from within. 
And second, nothing but shame and distress can come on those who 
flee from their proper place and work. 

From the whole narrative in this book the lesson to every minister 
of the gospel is, obey God. Amid every form of hardship and danger 
try to do as he directs. Obedience should be willing and prompt. 
It should be implicit and unreserved. The exercise of it demands 
much. To gain it there is need of prayer and faith and patience and 
often the spirit of true self denial. The clear call of God may be to go 
far hence to some unknown and supposedly undesirable field. If the 
summons is unmistakable, as Jonah's was, then tbe duty is to arise 
and go. It is wrong to run away, or even to sit still. Go and prophesy 
in the place divinely selected. 



40 The 'Story of Jonah. 

But sometimes the disobedience is shown by running away from 
a field where the Lord has already set his servant. There is danger of 
error here, too. Opposition and discouragement are not always a call 
of God to seek another charge. Yet the tendency at the present day, 
among even pious ministers when opposed and disheartened, is to be 
tempted to go elsewhere. If the fashion of the day takes hold of 
them, they begin to think, and brood over the thought, "I could do 
better almost any where else than here where I am." This disturbed 
posture of mind keeps the man from being as happy and as useful as 
he ought to be. 

God sometimes wants a minister to move — even to go far hence. 
Sometimes he would have him hold on where he is. The great thing 
is to determine the Lord's will; then obey. 

But how determine? On this point are we not fully authorized 
to believe and say, that if the man of God keeps faithfully working 
away, praying submissively and believingly, and waiting in patience, 
the Great Head of the church will, sooner of later, make the path of 
duty clear. This may be done at a time, or in a way, different from 
what we expect or desire. In God's own time it will surely be done. 

" It may not be my way. 
It may not be thy way. 
And yet in his own way 
The Lord will provide. " 

But another thing: reproving sin is a hard duty, especially the 
sins of the great and the rich. But it cannot be innocently omitted. 
The word of the Lord enjoins reproof. It denounces against the guilty 
the judgments of God before whom all sins are committed. He who 
faithfully divides the word of truth must show Bible teaching on this 
subject as well as on more pleasant themes. As much as its invitations, 
the warnings of Scripture are important. Often they do great good. 
Nineveh, being warned by Jonah, escaped calamity by heeding the 
warning. David the king, when fearlessly and righteously rebuked 
by Nathan who was sent to him for the purpose, deeply repented and 
humbled himself; and hence we have the fifty-first psalm. 

Too often, however, unbelief and the fear of man start countless 
objections to faithfulness, which, being yielded to, sin goes unrebuked. 
The fall of man brought cowardice into the human heart. It brought 
the spirit of shrinking from duty. This is a part of man's sin. 



Truant. 41 

How strange it makes even devout christians sometimes act. 
When desirous of escaping the cross, or of decHning obedience in some 
supposedly perillous circumstance, what irrational notions and absurd 
actions they are capable of. Like Adam, they sometimes try to hide 
from the Lord "among the trees of the garden," or, imitating Jonah, 
attempt to escape God's presence b}^ flight. 

"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for 
their wickedness is come up before me." This called for boldness, 
fearlessness, conscientious courage; not for harshness, or the tone of 
impatience. The truth is to be preached, sometimes, if occasion 
demands it, even unwelcome truth, but ever is it to be preached in 
love. Occasionally rebuke of sin calls for outspoken, emphatic, ring- 
ing words. Usually the most surely effective way is to speak in great 
tenderness, and kindness, and under the manifest power of the Spirit 
of Christ. May our God, who has a right to the honest services of all, 
and who calls all to his service here or there, to this duty or to that, 
by granting large measures of enabling grace, blessedly endue and 
strengthen every preacher of the gospel at all times for every duty of 
every nature. 

But other people have duties as well as ministers. Each is unmis- 
takably called of God into his service. The reader of these lines, 
whether in the church or out of it, has a mission from heaven. The 
word of the Lord has come, dear friend, unto you. Ringing from on 
high it calls: "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." "Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "Go, work to-day 
in my vineyard." But alas! alas! too many are like Jonah. Too 
many run away, accept not the Lord, nor work in the field to which 
they are called. 

Thus it is that human nature always wants to behave. This 
type of character has been common in all ages. When Jesus was one 
day preaching at Capernaum many thought his words were "hard 
sayings," and going away from him, "walked no more with him." 
The rich young man, too, "went away sorrowful, for he had great 
possessions." Were they afraid of trusting themselves to the Lord? 
or were they ashamed of staying Vv^ith him and not doing what he said? 

Oh, far too many people among us are like the offended disciples 
and the rich young ruler. Often when God secretly calls men to prayer 
and christian duties, they go and immerse themselves in business. 
Or, when alone, and God says something to their souls they do not 
like, they hurry into company to drown his voice. If he calls them 



42 The Story of Jonah. 

to make sacrifices for his poor, or in other ways for his cause, they 
rush into increased expenses for themselves; often into totally unneces- 
sary self indulgences. Constantly are people just going the opposite 
to the divine call. In this part of his history Jonah is but a sample of 
recreants every where— but a type of those who, when God calls them, 
disobey the call. 

And oh! how he deals with such in all cases where he don't 
abandon them. He lets them have their own way for a time as he did 
the prophet, but soon he hems them in, and encompasses them with 
difficulties, so that, as Augustine says, they shall be brought to ''fiee 
back from God displeased to God appeased." Pray devoutly that 
every shirker from duty may quickly hasten so to do. 

To every truant disciple, the language of the revived christian 
heart, if spoken out, would be: "I pray God that the whale may 
swallow you. That is, that you may be stopped in your course, brought 
back to God, made very successful in his service, and crowned with 
his rich blessing forevermore. All his dealings with you are meant for 
this. O praise his name. Accept his will. Obey his voice, and just 
see what he will do with you and for you, in this life and the next. Let 
the substance of your own prayer, daily and hourly sincerely offered , 
be that heart one of Miss Havergal:" 

Jesus, Master, whom I serve, 

Though so feebly and so ill. 
Strengthen hand and heart and nerve 

All thy bidding to fulfil; 
Open thou mine eyes to see 
All the work thou hast for me. 

Jesus, Master, wilt thou use 

One who owes thee more than all? 

As THOU wilt! I will not choose, 
Only let me hear th}^ call. 

Jesus, let me always be 

In thy service glad and free. 



Bestormed 



But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a 
mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken. 
Then were the mariners afraid, and cried every man unto his God, 
and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten 
it of them. — Jonah 1:4, 5. 

O, Ruler of the world, when at thy call 
Uprises the great deep, and throws himself 
Upon the continent, and overwhelms 
Its cities; who forgets not, at the sight 
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, 
His pride, and \b,js his strifes and follies by! 
O, from these sterner aspects of thy face 
Spare me and mine; nor let us need the wrath 
Of the mad, unchained elements, to teach 
Who rules them, and to make us do thy will. 

— Bryant. 



V. 

BESTORMED. 

The coui'se of sin never runs smooth continuously. It is sure to 
break into whirlpools and rapids sometime. Not seldom it does this 
soon; as truant Jonah v/as not long in finding out in his own case. In 
disobedience he had turned away from toward Nineveh, hasted to 
Joppa on the sea, found a ship going to Tarshish, went aboard, paid the 
fare, went below deck and settled himself to sound sleep, thinking 
to get away from the presence of the Lord in official v^'ork. He has 
done his all. Now God's part begins. Jonah has taken his measures. 
God now takes his. 

Up to this point the wayrv^ard man was permitted to have his own 
way. So a long suffering Father often deals with those who disobey 
his call. He lets them do their own will for a time. " He waits in the 
tranquility of his almightiness until they have completed their prepara- 
tions, and then, when man has ended, he begins, so that man ma}^ see 
the more that it is his doing." The Lord takes the fleeing in their 
flight, the wise in their counsels, sinners in their sins, and draws them 
back to himself, compelling them to return. Jonah hoped to find 
rest on the sea, and lo! a tempest — a very fierce one — so fierce that 
"the ship thought to be broken." That is, aU on board felt sure the 
vessel would go to pieces. 

On that sea such violent storms often sprung up. They were 
called Euraquillo; sometimes Euroclydon. It was one of these that 
over nine hundred years later, or about the year of our Lord sixty-two, 
wrecked the vessel on which the Apostle Paul was sailing. God pre- 
pared that storm, as he did the one that overtook Jonah, and as he 
does all the storms that novv^ work his will. With startling sudden- 
ness these often come. Man knows not what is but a little way before 
him. He "proposes, but God disposes." The fleeing prophet thinlcs 
he is now safe, since the vessel that carries him has put out to sea and 
is heading away toward the far west. " But the Lord sent a great 
wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that 
the ship was like to be broken. " 

The Lord's time has now come. The disciplining of the prophet 
now begins. In softness and quiet let us admire and adore the lofty 
and matchlessly sure way of the divine procedure. 

And note well first, the terribleness of the Lord was meant in 



46 The Story of Jonah. 

mercy. The storm was violent, but no wonder. The case demanded 
something startling and extraordinary. How easy for Omnipotence 
to use such means, making his work thorough, and, at the same time, 
doing it with merciful intent. 

The divine purposes in this case are clear. First, to subdue Jonah; 
to melt his obstinacy to love, his rebellion to obedience, and make him 
willing to execute his commission to Nineveh. Second, to bring about 
the real conversion of that ship's crew of heathen mariners — a wonder- 
ful and a merciful thing. Third, to give the Ninevites undoubted 
proof that the prophet was really sent from God to them. Jonah was 
a sign to them, our Lord says; that is, he was a Vv^onder — a miraculous 
messenger to them. They knew of his entombment in the fish, and 
his deliverance after so long a time. This thoroughly convinced them 
that he was commissioned by the Supreme God to deliver his message 
to them. A fourth divine purpose was, in the experience of Jonah, 
to furnish the world a type of Christ, who was to be three days and 
three nights "in the heart of the earth." 

These were the leading purposes of the Great Ruler in making use 
of the sea, and the storm, the sailors and the fish spoken of in this 
chapter, — to-wit, to subdue Jonah, convert the mariners, give a sign 
to the Ninevites, and furnish to all people a remarkable type of Christ 
in several particulars. 

The present chapter, however, may only attempt to partially 
unfold the first and second of these points; that is, the subdueing of 
Jonah, and the conversion of the sailors. And all there is need to 
say may, it is thought, be properly clustered around a single core word 
or two — Jonah Bestormed. 

This is the theme — Jonah bestormed a blessing to himself and to 
others. The lesson is not hidden. It is near the surface, and easily 
learned. Following carefully, one by one, the items, or incidents of 
the history, down to the point where the storm raged its fiercest, will 
show how the wayward prophet was brought to his senses, and also, 
how the mariners were gradually, and more and more deeply, impressed 
in a reverent and a right way by all that occurred, and were thus led 
along toward their final decision for the Lord God, who made the 
heaven, the sea, and all things else. 

Looking the record, we see that the very first thing that awed 
these heathen sailors was the fierceness of the tempest. The}'' had a 
sea-faring experience, had buffeted many storms, but felt now at once 
that these winds and waves were super-ordinary. Their notion was. 



Bestormed. 47 

the gods must have sent them. So they " were afraid, " says the verse. 
They thought their gods were angry with them. That was a common 
heathen idea. Most Gentiles of that day had some notion of a supreme 
power, but no right knowledge of the true God. They knew nothing 
of a loving, merciful Heavenly Father, who ruleth over all, and careth 
for all who love him. They had always been taught that* each nation 
had its own gods; that "there were gods many and lords many;" and 
that when these w^ere angry they at once visited calamity upon the 
creature offending. This belief now" called forth their frightened 
prayers. 

All the way through the crisis, we observe they did what they 
could. As soon as convinced this was an unusual storm, they " were 
afraid, and cried every man to his god. " That was a sensible thing to 
do, ordinarily — to pray to God. ^Tio would not do so in time of dan- 
ger? But these men were probably mostly Phoenicians. May be 
some of them were of other nations. All of them, doubtless believed 
in gods that they fancied to be real, but that we know to be only 
imaginary. Long ago, each of them had chosen his own tutelary, or 
guardian, deity; and now in peril each begs help of his own. Poor 
men! they may have been sincere, but their knowledge was wofully 
deficient. As yet they know not the true God. Nevertheless, that 
same true God over all hears their cry, and so orders other things 
immediately following, that they are led to ''know him, whom to 
know aright is everlasting life." Gratefully learn, God "hears even 
ignorant prayer, when ignorance is not wilful and sin. " 

But these sailors also worked. To prayer they added effort. 
" They cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten 
it of them." They are only experimenting, however. They know 
not what the real cumbrance of the ship is. The}^ know not yet that 
sin and disobedience in the person of the man asleep below deck is the 
real burden endangering the vessel and all aboard. This they must 
find out before they are safe. The true God, who is managing will 
lead them to the discovery. 

How will he do it? The steps are well defined. The gods have 
not heard their cries for help. The storm increases in fury. Throw- 
ing out the lading brings no abatement. Something else must be 
done. The thought comes: perhaps some other god is angry, and we 
have not besought the right one. May be this stranger down in the 
hull has offended his god, whom he claims to be above all other gods, 
and the storm will not stop till his god is placated. 



48 The Story of Jonah. 

All this, like a flash, goes tlirough the mind, of the captain, espec- 
ially, and off he speeds to Jonah's side, wakes him with words of reproof 
for his indolence and indifference in such a danger, and urges him to 
prayer. Poor Jonah! guilt}* in conscience, sullen and rebellious, 
fatigued with the journej* from Joppa, long and hm-ried; under strain 
of excitement in escaping from duty; perhaps ashamed to stay in 
company with others, or look them in the face, had hid himself away 
as best he could before the storm set in, where, thinking himself now 
escaped from prophetic influence, and reaction from all he had just 
passed through coming on, he had gone to sleep. Gone to sleep, at 
such a time! And so deeply he slept, that the raging waves and winds 
did not wake him. 

Those who have made a study of the question, tell us that sullen- 
ness alone, aside from fatigue, induces sleep. However that may be, 
we know that grief does. The night before the crucifixion, in the 
garden, at a crisis time, Jesus found the disciples "asleep for sorrow." 
Jonah was now held in heavy, or deep, slumber, such as Adam's before 
a life companion was provided him, or as Sisera's before the nail was 
driven into his temple. It was his duty as a prophet of the Lord to 
call the heathen to prayers. But now a heathen man has to call him. 
Literally, the shipmaster sharply said to him, " What is there to thee 
sleeping?" That is, " v/hat reason hast thou for sleeping?" or, "What 
meanest thou by sleeping?" The words are an exclamation of indig- 
nant surprise at the unreasonableness of the sleeper's conduct in such 
a crisis. Charged, as he was by his office, with the weal of all on board, 
the shipmaster would, in the common peril, have one common praj^er. 
So he urges, "arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think 
upon us, that we perish not." "Think upon us for good," he means. 
As David says, "I am poor and need}^ the Lord thinketh upon me," — 
"FOR me," that is, "on my behalf." 

But in this captain's words get a glimpse of another heathen con- 
ception. When this chief officer of the vessel says to Jonah, "call 
upon thy God, " he uses the lower term — the one applied to the heathen 
deities. When right after, he sa5's, " if so be that God will think upon 
us," he employs an entirel}^ different word. His term now is the 
name designating the Suprem.e Ruler over all. He thus seems to 
acknowledge Jonah's God as THE God. Using the name of the true 
God here, as he does, hints to us, as Calvin argues, and Perowne words 
it, " that behind and above the many gods whom the heathen invented 
for themselves, they retained the idea, vague, perhaps, and indistinct 



Bestormed. 49 

for the most part, but starting into prominence in times of danger and 
distress such as this, of one supreme God by whose providence the 
world is governed, and in whose hand are the life and safety of men. 
In this view it is not any heathen prayer that Jonah is asked to offer. 
Rather, it is the pra3^er of the rational creature to the God of heaven 
who is able to help." 

That pra3'er was no doubt offered. And it was most surely answer- 
ed. But not immediately, and not at all in the way the mariners and 
Jonah wished. The All-wise had his own plan — his own beneficent 
purpose. He designed that Jonah should learn lessons from these 
heathen, as well as from his own experience, that would humble him 
and make him a better man. And he designed that these heathen 
should learn from Jonah, and from the outcome of the storm, about 
himself, and become worshippers of the true God. So the storm raged 
on, the seamen's and Jonah's prayers unanswered for the present. 

On the point of despair, resort was then had to the lot. No 
apparent help coming from prayer, or from casting the tackling out of 
the ship, the sailors conclude that the storm is sent upon them by the 
gods as a judgment for some crime committed by one of their number, 
and they take this method of detecting the culprit. 

Such belief was not uncommon in those early centuries. Cicero 
tells of Diagoras on a voyage, when a storm arose, and the sailors 
charged him with being its cause. But he simply pointed them to the 
other vessels in the same plight with themselves, and asked if they 
thought that these too carried Diagoras. Horace, in one of his odes, 
declares that he would not put to sea in the same boat with a man who 
had provoked the anger of the gods, because, in such cases, the inno- 
cent often suffered with the guilty. This idea impressed upon the 
minds of these mariners, they cast lots. 

The Great God is directing in the matter. He sent the storm 
to arrest Jonah, proposing in a marvellous way to rescue him there- 
from. But he will use human agency in all the fore-running events 
down to the last act when he directly puts forth his might. This 
being his method, he provided that the mxariners should be set upon 
divining why the storm came. And when they cast lots, he, who has 
the whole disposing of them in control, directed that the lot fall on 
Jonah; as before this among his people he had guided it to the dis- 
covery of Achan, and afterwards, of Jonathan. The Lord God over- 
ruled the lot in the case of Jonah as he did the sign which the Philistines 
sought. He made the heifers that were yoked to draw the ark take 



50 The Story of Jonah. 

the way to Bethshemish, that the Philistines might know that the 
plague came to them, not by chance, but from himself. So the lot 
fell upon the fugitive prophet, not by any virtue of the lots, especially 
the lots of heathen, but by the will of him who guides things all uncer- 
tain to man. 

To this ship's crew the lot points out the culprit. What will 
they do with him? Cast him into the sea at once? So would rasher, 
wickeder men. But these are of a different type. They gave him 
opportunity to speak for himself. Even in the midst of the wild 
tumult and storm, they held a court, as it were, in the vessel. They 
seem to proceed as deliberately as if no danger was imminent. Unedu- 
cated and untaught, these sailors imitated the good order of tribunals 
of justice. They allow the prisoner a hearing and a defense. They 
sift every thing accurately, as men who are to give account of their 
judgment. The roaring sea accused the culprit. The lot witnessed 
against him. Yet not even thus did they pass sentence upon him, 
until he, the accused, shall be the accuser of his own sin. 

Oh, where was there ever a scene to equal this? Wlio can tell 
why, in the very acme of fright, and jeopardy, such leniency and 
courtesy was shown toward this stranger whom they knew not? Sure- 
ly, as Crysostom says, the}^ were led to this dignified course "by the 
disposal of God. For God, bj'- all this, instructed the prophet to be 
humane and mild, all but saying aloud to him * Imitate these uninstruct- 
ed sailors. They think not lightly of one soul, nor are unsparing as to 
one body, thine own. But thou, for thy part, gavest up a whole city 
with so many myriads. They, discovering thee to be cause of the 
evils which befell them, did not even thus hurry to condemn thee. 
Thou, having nothing whereof to accuse the Ninevites, didst abandon 
them to destruction. Thou, when I bade thee go, and by thy preach- 
ing, call them to repentance, obeyedst not. These, untaught, do all, 
compass all, in order to recover thee, already condemned, from pun- 
ishment.' " 

Searching the annals of all secular history through and through 
it would be hard to find a procedure to match this. " While the fury 
of the waves and the tempest constantly increased, and every instant 
was precious to those who prized their lives, this heathen crew pa- 
tiently instituted an investigation with almost judicial calmness." 
Certain it is that all these steps are taken " by the disposal of God. " 

But further, the mariner's minds, already impressed, are soon 
more impressed by Jonah's words. He answers straightway and frankly. 



Bestormed. - 51 

But before we hear his words, look at him. By the captain brought 
up on deck before the lot was cast, he stands there now, along with 
the whole ship's crew, a changed man. The emergency has recalled 
him to his true self. All the better part of his character now comes 
out, as the rest of the chapter shows. His conduct is henceforth dig- 
nified and manly, worthy of a servant and prophet of Jehovah. The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon him, and he shows it in his undoubted sin- 
cerity, tone of voice, and manner. 

4.il Mid the excitement and danger, hear how the questions of those 
managing the case throng upon him. "Tell us, we pray thee for 
whose cause this evil is upon us? What is thine occupation and whence 
comest thou? What is thy countr}^? and of what people art thou? 
Even before he could utter a word in reply, how their queries must 
have gone home to his conscience. 

''What is your business?" 

"The office of a prophet which I have left." 

"Whence comest thou?" 

"From standing before God as his inspired servant." 

"What is thy country? of what people art thou?" 

"The people of God whom I quitted for heathen, not to win them 
to the Lord, as he commanded, but to use another company of them, 
without their knowing what they did, to help me escape from duty." 

Conscience flashed these answers through his own soul as the 
questions hurriedly came to him. Then he spake aloud for all present, 
answering simply the central point to which all their hurried inquiries 
focussed. 

"I am a Hebrew, and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, who 
made the sea and the dry land." 

Well done, Jonah! That was faithful preaching, and the fruit it 
bore was immediate. For " then were the men exceedingl}^ afraid. " 

He had told them before that he had fled "from being before 
Jehovah. " But they then only thought of Jehovah as being the God 
of the Hebrews, on a par with the gods of other nations, no greater, 
no stronger, nor more holy. 

But now when Jonah, in most convincing way, adds, that he 
whose service he had forsaken is "the God of heaven, who made the 
sea and the dry land," they were startled with the thought. They 
felt hov/ awful a thing it was to be in the hands of such a Being. Here 
is the sea raging. The Lord God made it and all things. Therefore, 
it is surely he who has stirred it to its depths. Able to do the one, 



52 The Story of Jonah. 

much more the other. It is a less thing to lash the sea into fury, than 
it was to make it at the first. What shall we do? We are powerless 
before such an Almighty One. 

With this feeling of reverence and fear overwhelming them, no 
marvel that they thrust quick upon him their words, — not so much 
now of inquiry, as of amazement and reproach — '^ Whj'- hast thou done 
this?" Yes, wh}^, indeed. Astonishing that one who fears such a 
God, and has had revelations from him, and also has received from him 
a personal ca.ll to a special service, would flee rather than obey such 
a call. 

We may well suppose these thoughts forced themselves on the 
mariners. They are puzzled over the mystery of Jonah's flight. They 
cannot understand it. Wliy did the worshipper of the One true God 
flee from his God — an honored servant from his Lord — a son from a 
kind Father — a believer from his Almighty Friend? Their question, 
showing exceeding surprise on their part, was well suited to produce 
in his mind a strong feeling of reprobation of his own act. 

And having thus uttered their feeling of disapproving wonder, 
they at once ask "What shall we do unto thee?" They ask the pris- 
oner at the bar to pronounce sentence upon himself. " What shall we 
do unto thee?" 

In this inquir}^ at such a time, in such a pressure, get a glimpse of 
their reverence for Jehovah, and in a measure also for his servant. 
Instead of at once ridding themselves of him as the acknowledged 
cause of their calamity, they appeal to him for a decision. It seems 
clear they are now convinced he is a prophet. So they ask him the 
mind of his God. 

As one receiving communications from your God — the Supreme 
Ruler — O tell us what is his will? What shall we do unto thee, that 
the sea may be calm unto us?" That is, that it may be quiet from 
pressing upon us, and being hostile to us. We are in fearful jeopardy. 
And you are the cause of it, as the lot pointed out, and you yourself 
acknowledge. 

Such was their plea. They were on the point of despair, " for the 
sea wrought and was tempestuous." It was growing more and more 
boisterous. Literally, "It was going, and being tossed." As Jerom^e, 
quoted by Pusey, says: "It was going as it was bidden; it was going 
to avenge its Lord; it was going, pursuing the fugitive prophet. It 
was swelling every moment, and, as though the sailors were too tardy, 
was rising in yet greater surges, showing that the vengeance of the 



Bestormed. 53 

Creator admitted not of delay." So the storm raged, and things are 
now rapidly nearing a crisis. 

But let us pause here a moment for evident lessons. One is, be 
thoughtful and watchful of self. Ministers of the gospel, who have 
Jonah's office to speak in the name of God and preach repentance, 
should ask themselves, What is my business? I have professed to give 
mj^self wholly to my Lord. He has loaded me with his benefits. I 
approach him daily as a Friend. What is my business? Oh, not to 
run away from him. Not to seek any Tarshish when he calls me to 
Nineveh — to any work I do not like. Surely not. But to live for 
him, to stay in the harness, to despise the things of earth, to behold 
the things of heaven, and lead others to the home on high. This is 
the duty of those occupying the sacred office. 

And Sabbath school teachers, parents and all christians rest under 
like solemn obligations. The Lord has assigned each to a sphere of 
work in his service. Never, never should any one run away from it. 
True, the Heavenly Father may at times call his child to other duties — 
to work elsewhere — but he will never take him to the world, nor any 
where out of his service. He wants us to be busied in doing his will. 
To every one so engaged he says: "Be thou faithful unto death, and 
I will give thee a crown of life." 

Another lesson is, strive to be exemplary in all things. The harm- 
fulness of the believer's inconsistencies is incomputable. To see an 
older christian, or a prominent christian, going astray is the marvel 
of the young christian, often the repulsion of those beginning to seek 
the way, and the hardening of the unbeliever. All nature — ''stormy 
wind fulfilling his word" — and every class among men, seem to cry 
out to, and against, the unfaithful christian; "why hast thou done 
this?" No wonder the world has the golden proverb : "Consistency 
is a jewel." Surely, no where does it shine more charmingly than in 
the christian's life. Oh, covet, gain, and wear it ever. 

Another practical lesson is the duty of the unconverted to rouse 
up to their highest interests. Jonah's deep sleep was an emblem of the 
sinner's lethargy, — an emblem, too, of the errorist's usually uncon- 
cerned security. "Oh, awake thou that sleepest, and call upon thy 
God. " The unconverted have no idea of the imminent dangers around 
them, because they are slumbering in spiritual indifference, and uncon- 
cern. Their direst need is a clear and vivid realization of the solemn 
and weighty duties of life and of eternity. To this may every sleeper 
be soon and fully aroused by the blessed Holy Spirit, as was Jonah by 
the captain of that tempest tossed vessel. Amen. 



Overboard. 



And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the 
sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you. ... So they took up 
Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her 
raging. — Jonah 1:12, 15. 

They that go down to the sea in ships, 

These see the works of Jehovah. 
For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind. 

Which lifteth up the waves thereof. 
They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths; 

Their soul melteth away because of trouble. 
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, 

And are at their wits end. 
Then they cry unto Jehovah in their trouble, 

And he bringeth them out of their distresses. 

— David. 



VI. 

OVERBOARD 

Yes, that is the next thing about our runaway prophet. He 
thought to escape to Tarshish. The sailors soon put him into the 
Mediterranean. They did not wish to do it. They tried their best 
to save the ship and themselves without resorting to such extremity. 
They showed carefulness, dignity, and great patience. They pro- 
ceeded very deliberately, even in the midst of the greatest peril. But 
the way of Providence was surely against them. Step by step they 
were umnistakably led up to doing as they did. Fully convinced, at 
length, that they could not escape with this runaway Hebrew aboard, 
they offer him a sacrifice, as it were, for the lives of all the others on 
the ship. 

Were they right in doing this? Closely scan the history a little 
farther and see assuredly that the whole thing was of the Lord. Behold 
how his unswerving overruling led on without a break to the final issue. 

We are told minutelj^ how it was. The officers of the boat had 
innocently taken Jonah aboard. God sent the storm. The men called 
upon their gods to stay it; threw the wares out of the ship; awaked the 
sleeping passenger; cast lots that designated him as the culprit; hurried 
their questions upon him; grew awed at his manner and answers; spake 
their amazement and reproach; and then, convinced he was a prophet 
of the Supreme God, and seeing the waves increase in fury, they press 
him to decide his own punishment. ''What shall we do unto thee 
that the sea may be calm unto us." 

Jonah, now fully recalled to his true self, detains them not. At 
once he authoritatively declares the only course in the case. Most 
evidently prompted by the Spirit of God he directs: ''Take me up, 
and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for 
I know that for my sake this tempest is upon j^ou. " Humble now, and 
penitent, he pronounces sentence upon himself. 

Had he a right to do this? Only under the sure direction of 
heaven. Without the command of God, neither Jonah nor the sailors 
might dispose of his life. For him to give it up himself would be suicide. 
For them to take it would be murder, unless the divine will required 
this of him and of them. 

The fugitive might, indeed, surrender himself to their will. But 
he does more. He incites them to the deed. This he had no right 



58 The Story of Jonah. 

to do except in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Undoubtedly so moved, 
his word to them is authoritative. ''Take me up and cast me into 
the sea, — for I know that for my sake this tempest is upon you." 

His word " know" assures he had a revelation, and that God willed 
he should be thrown overboard. He would not cast himself into the 
angry waves. But when summoned by the voice of God speaking 
plainly in his heart, it became his duty to summon them to execute 
sentence upon him. 

They, however, hesitate. They cannot at once bring themselves 
to do as he bids. They must save his life if possible. No doubt they 
were affected by the prophets candid confession, and by his self-con- 
trolled, submissive conduct. They feared, too, to lay hands on Je- 
hovah's representative among them. So "they rowed hard" to get 
back to land. But they could not, for "the sea wrought, and was 
tempestuous against them. " 

"They rowed hard." The Hebrew is, "they dug." Like the 
phrase, "ploughed the main," the term suggests great effort. They 
put their oars well and firmly in the sea, and turned up the water as 
men turn up the earth by digging. But in vain. God willed it not. 
For the storm, so far from abating, only raged the more. 

O, friend, far from God, behold these now penitent subdued 
heathen! Learn from them. The prophet had pronounced sentence 
against liimself. But they will not lay hands on him if they can help 
it. So. straining every muscle, they strive to get back to the shore 
and avoid bloodshed. Willing were they to lose life under necessity, 
rather than cause its loss directly. 

What a contrast to the scene around the cross on that central day 
of the world's history! Some who were the professed people of God 
then cried, " crucify him, crucify him. " " These are bidden. " Jerome 
says, "to put to death; the sea rages, the tempest commands; and they 
are careless as to their own safety, while anxious about another's. " 

But in the next verse, see still farther marked evidence of the great 
and real change these seamen had experienced. They had questioned, 
devised, struggled, done all they could, and were on the point of despair. 
"Wherefore they cried unto the Lord," — cried unto Jehovah. The 
crisis is just at hand. 

Have 3^ou ever been there, my reader? Have you ever prayed 
and worked, and worked and prayed, and watched and waited, and 
prayed and worked, again and again, for something as dear to you as 
your own life? Your heart was set upon it. You feel you cannot live 



Overboard. 59 

without it. But your faith is tried over and over again till at last 
you can bear up no longer. Then you break down and cry to the 
Lord as never before. All 3'our past prayers seemed no prayer com- 
pared to the outpouring of your soul to God now. 

It may have been the illness of a fond darling. You held the hand, 
felt the pulse, watched the breathing, gave the medicine, smoothed the 
couch, called the doctor again and again, tried to smile and speak 
cheery words in tender, encouraging tones when your heart was almost 
breaking. For hours at a time, night after night, you kept your vigils 
at the bedside, — kept whispering your prayers at every quiet moment, 
hope and fear swaying alternate in j'-our breast, your body wearing 
out without yoiu" knowing it, (so wonderfully were you sustained 
physically), till after while the doctor holds out hope no longer, and all 
friends look their belief that the end is nearing. Then you can bear 
up no longer, but hurry to a private room where, alone with God, your 
tears rain in showers, you sob uncontrollably, and you pray as you 
never knew any thing about before. O, God, must he, she, "depart? 
If so, th}^ will be done. Do help me to say it. But oh, if possible, 
spare the darling child. 0, Lord, if thou hast a work for her yet to do 
for thee in this life, raise her up to do it. If nothing farther, then take 
her to thyself, away from sin and sorrow and sickness forever. I leave 
all with thee. Thou canst do all things, canst raise up from the very 
grave, if that be best. O, give me strength and grace to trust thee 
fully, and unreservedly. 

Thus, only far more full}^ you wept, and cried, and prayed, and 
believed, as never before, till the peace of God, like a soft but sure 
rising tide, came stealing into your soul, deep, and strong, and still, 
till you were blessed away beyond all past experience. You were 
softened, mellowed and ripened richly. That was what you needed. 
That sickness was meant in mercy for 3^ou. You needed to be sub- 
dued, and your will given up to the Father's will. That made you 
"meet for the Master's use." 

And from that moment your precious one began to amend. God 
has given you his lesson. Now he will try you again. Or, if the dear 
one now passes on from earth, you feel that your prayer is answered. 
You feel a resignation that is a life-blessing to you, and you feel tied 
to heaven with a cord tenfold beyond what you ever knew in the past. 
Sincerely now using the language of Rev. G. B. Peck you can say: 



60 The Story of Jonah. 

Whate'er my God ordains is right; 

His will is ever just; 
Howe'er he orders now my cause, 
I will be still and trust. 
He is my God, 
Though dark my road; 
He holds me that I shall not fall, 
Therefore to him I leave it all. 

These sailors must learn to yield their wills to God's will. See 
them. They did all they could, — struggled long, pra3^ed to their gods, 
but the storm still raged; cast lots, but the sea foamed more and more; 
questioned Jonah and reverenced his answers, but the tempest in- 
creased; rowed hard to get to land, but the waves rolled with cumula- 
tive anger. They see all is no use. They give up. They break down. 
One can well imagine they wept and sobbed aloud, like children when 
overcome after a heart-breaking struggle. 

But whether they literally wept or not, the text says, ''They cried 
unto Jehovah." That was better than mere weeping. Yes, that was 
the best thing, the right thing, and the only thing for them to do then. 
After all their efforts, — their patience v/ith the Lord's coward servant, 
their deliberation, their kindness, their study of the case, and their 
struggle to save the prophet, — it seems clear they must now yield to 
the inevitable. "Wherefore," that is, 'seeing the sea going and being 
tossed more and more,' "they cried unto Jehovah." Before this, 
they had prayed to their own gods. Now, they call upon the Lord, 
'the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land,' and who, 
they were at last convinced, sent the storm. 

They are changed men now. From Jonah, from the storm, and 
all that had just taken place, they had learned who the true, supreme 
God is, and they address him; address him in reverence, in submission, 
in earnestness, faith and hope. All these ingredients characterize 
their petition. "They cried unto the Lord, and said: "We beseech 
thee, O, Lord, we beseech thee, let us not perish for this man's life, 
and lay not upon us innocent blood; for thou, O, Lord, hast done as it 
pleased thee." In these strong, yearning words, they plead for their 
own lives, and that they might not be held responsible for taking 
Jonah's. "Lay not upon us the guilt of having shed innocent blood; 
for thou, O, Lord, hast done as it pleased thee." 

How sententious, how eloquent their exact words. "What thou* 



Overboard. 61 

wiliest, thou didst. " There are just two words in the Hebrew, — " wili- 
est, didst. " The termination of each word shows the person meant, — 
the second person, "(thou) wiliest, (thou) didst." True eloquence 
vigorously condensed! Read in Genesis one, three; ''Light be, light 
was." In Psalm thirty-three, nine; "He bid, it stood." And here; 
" (thou( wiliest, (thou) didst. " It is all thy doing. We did not plan 
to take this man's life. We have tried hard not to do it. We would 
fain avoid it. But thou hast shut us up to it. We are onl}^ carrying 
out thy declared will. Hold us not, therefore, responsible for this act. 
" That Jonah betook himself to this ship of ours, that the tempest was 
raised, that Jonah was taken by lot, that he passed this sentence upon 
himself, — all this comes of thy will," — tersely AATites Rosenmuller 
when paraphrasing their words. -^ 

Notice, these nov/ obedient mariners do not inquire into Jehovah's 
motives, do not ask his reasons. His evident will is enough for them, 
as it is enough for any worshipper and servant of the Most High. 
Assured that it was the Lord who had sent his affliction, the Psalmist, 
when suffering it, in devout meditation, declares his resignation; " I am 
silenced; I will not open my mouth, because thou hast done it." 

In like manner convinced, and now also resigned to a painful 
duty, the seamen "took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea." 
It does not read, 'they laid hold on him,' nor, 'came upon him,' inti- 
mating rough usage; but "lifted" him — "lifted up Jonah." The true 
reading hints of tenderness, respect and reluctance, with no struggle 
on his part, or violence on theirs. 

Overboard, and in such a storm as that, was certainly fearful. 
But Jonah submitted voluntarily. He offered no resistance. He gave 
himself up as a substitute for others. So did our Lord go into a j&ercer 
storm. He went to his death of his own accord. He gave himself a 
free-will offering for sinners. "Like as a lamb to the slaughter, and 
as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." 
Jonah was a type of Christ, not in that he was innocent, for he was 
guilty; but in that he gave himself a voluntary offering for the lives 
of others. 

A type also in the result. As soon as they cast him forth, "the 
sea ceased from her raging." "The sea stood to them," it reads. 
The idea is, it stood like a servant after his work. At once the sailors 
had full calm and safety. Our Lord's death on the cross immediately 
brought peace to a tempest-tossed world. Amid the storms of God's 
righteous anger, there comes at once a great and permanent calm to 



62 The Story of Jonah. 

the soul that takes Christ as its Substitute, resting wholly on what he 
has done. Dear friend, accept the Saviour thus, and no storm of 
divine displeasure will ever overtake you. 

But Jonah overboard — what became of him? We are not told 
just at once. The narrative stops a little to tell of the impression made 
on the minds of the mariners. '' Then the men feared Jehovah exceed- 
ingly. " Back in the tenth verse the statement is: "Then were the 
men exceedingly afraid." Here it is, "They feared Jehovah exceed- 
ingly." There is a difference. "Then," at the opening of the storm 
their fear was vague and indefinite. They were terrified. Now the 
Lord is the direct object of their fear. They are awed into belief of 
his existence, as well as into reverence for his character. 

To be afraid of God is not to fear him. To be afraid of God keeps 
men away from him. To fear God draws men to him. Proper fear 
includes reverence and love. He who fears God, in the true sense, has 
both awe of, and delight in, him. He fears to sin against him. Who- 
ever fears God as a son, fears him also in act, and will strive not to 
transgress his holy law. 

These mariners now "feared the Lord exceedingly." The sudden 
ceasing of the tem^pest and tranquility of the sea, had convinced them 
that Jonah's words about his God were true. They had never seen it 
on this fashion before. Generally the waves still swell after the wind 
has ceased. In this case, as soon as the sea received Jonah the storm 
hushed at once, to show that God alone had raised and also quelled it. 
The men are convinced. Their conversion is now completed. Inci- 
dents one after another, unfolding rapidly, had thronged upon them. 
Events full of wonder had made more and more impression on their 
minds. Things beyond nature, and contrary to nature as kno\\Ti to 
them, they had seen; all of them betokening the presence of the 
Almighty One, v/ho has all things in his power; and all of them strongly 
corroborating and emphasizing the prophet's manly and franic avowal 
of the God of heaven wlio made all things. Being now believers, the 
men shew it by their worship. "They sacrificed a sacrifice unto the 
Lord, and vowed vows." 

The connection suggests, they did it immediately. Some ancient 
ships were large enough to carry live animals, and it is not difficult to 
suppose that, bound on a long voyage as it was, this vessel had on 
board one or more beasts suitable for sacrifice, which the now devout 
crew offered at once, while they promised fuller services in the future, 
Their thankfulness was not all spent on one act of worship. "They 



Overboard. 63 

vowed vows" — promised that they would do hereafter what they could 
not, as fully as they wished, do then. Or, as Jerome thinks, they pledged 
themselves that they would never depart from him whom they had 
now begun to worship. Their promise stretched forward in purpose 
to an abiding and enlarged obedience in coming days, as God should 
give them grace and strength." 

Doubtless these charitable, self-poised and considerate men were 
now enrolled among the people of God. First fruits they are from 
among the Gentiles. How strangely were they brought into the fold. 
The disobedience and repentance of the prophet, along with the storm 
and its marvellous subsidence, won them to the Lord God who rules 
over all. 

Were these converted seamen the fu-st preachers among the 
heathen? Did their account of their own wonderful deliverance pre- 
pare the way for Jonah's mission to Nineveh, as some suppose? Specu- 
lation here need not be indulged. Turn rather to what is practical 
and undoubted. 

Has my reader begun to worship God in truth, and vowed vows 
for the future — for a life-long, unswerving service? Just here do duty 
and privilege lie. These heathen accepted Jehovah on evidence, — 
the unusual storm, the impotence of their own gods, the determination 
of the lot, Jonah's solemn words and confession, his sentence upon 
himself, its execution, the sudden, unheard of calm that at once came 
— all these things convinced them tha,t Jehovah is the God. And 
when convinced, they act accordingly. Every one in a christian land 
now has far fuller evidence of the existence, character and will of the 
great God over all, than these Tarshish-bound sailors had. Therefore, 
every one is bound to accept the evidence, act upon it, and at once and 
ever after engage in the true service of Jehovah of Hosts. 

The earnest plea with every non-committed reader is, Oh, embrace 
Christ now, thus securing peace and a quiet soul, and begin sincere 
life-worship and service without delay. His holy word and his provi- 
dence both call to this, and joy is ready to swell among the angels of 
God around the throne, as soon as each one, repentant, closes in with 
the Saviour. " Behold, now is the accepted time. " Choose you to-day 
— "this very hour." May the prayer of Rev, Ray Palmer be the sin- 
cere cry of your heart: 



64 The Story of Jonah. 

Take me, O my Father, take me; 

Take me, save me, through thy Son; 
That which thou wouldst have me, make me, 

Let thy will in me be done. 
Long from thee my footsteps straying. 

Thorny proved the way I trod; 
Weary come I nov/, and praying, 

Take me to thy love, my God. Amen. 



Swallowed 



Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. 

Jonah 1:17. 

There is a power 
Unseen, that rules the illimitable v>^orld; 
That guides its motions, from the brightest star 
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould; 
AVhile man, who madly deems himself the lord 
Of all, is naught but weakness and dependence. 

— ^Thomson. 

K mounted on a morning ray 

I fiy beyond the western sea. 

Thy swifter hand would first arrive, 

And there arrest thy fugitive.— Watts. 



VII. 

SWALLOWED 

One would think that overboard in a storm like that would be the 
last of a man. So it would in all ordinary cases. It would certainly 
have been the last of Jonah had not God marvellously interposed. 
That is to say, it would have been the last of his earth-life . The soul is 
inomortal and must go to God. Whether in sin or in salvation, pre- 
pared or unprepared, it must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. 
Each one of us must give account of himself unto God; each one must 
live hereafter. 

But limiting our thought in Jonah's case to life here below, over- 
board into the angrj^ waters would have been his end, if the Lord had 
not provided remarkable means for his rescue. 

We can never tell what God may do. He is perfectly infinite in 
resources. In working out his matchless plan, he often uses means 
amazingl}^ unexpected to man. He can save by few or man}^, with 
means or without means. In his working, however, he generally 
condescends to use means; sometimes means the most marvellous, 
indeed. Jonah was cast forth into the sea, but "the Lord had pre- 
pared a great fish to swallow'' him. 

See how remarkably providences dove-tail into each other. The 
moment Jonah was lifted over the ship's side, and dropped into the 
water, the Lord had a sea-monster, of sufficient size and voracious dis- 
position, just at that place ready to entomb him within itself. 

All God's creatures are subservient to him. In ways that we 
cannot understand he often controls their wills, using them to do his 
will. He sent ravens to feed Elijah. He prompted wild bears to 
tear the mocking children of Bethel. He told the geese when to cackle 
to save Rome. And he brought a great fish to that bestormed ship 
just in the nick of time to take Jonah into its capacious maw. 

But was Jonah swallowed as soon as he struck the waves? Some 
think he went to the bottom first. In the fifth and sixth verses of the 
next chapter, he says: 

The vraters compassed me about, even to the soul; 

The deep v/as round about me; 

The weeds were "v\Tapped about my head. 

I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; 

The earth with its bars closed upon me forever; 

Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O my God. 



68 The Story of Jonah. 

Taken literally these words are very forceful. '' The waters come 
even to the soul" — pressing to penetrate at every opening — mouth, 
nose and ears — to fill the lungs, and destroy breathing. To draw 
breath which sustains life, would be to strangle life. Surely there is 
but a breath between him and death. The sea-weed was ^^Tapped 
about his head as a grave band. To a strong swimmer on the surface, 
"the weeds" were often an entangling peril. To one below, power- 
less to struggle, they would be as a winding sheet. So the words inti- 
mate. 

But Jonah may only be speaking figuratively. His strong imagi- 
nation giving him the impression that the fish vras carrying him through ^ 
the waters, among the sea-weed, even deep down to the very ''roots 
of the mountains," he used these metaphors to give strength to his 
thanksgiving for deliverance from immediate death. Although in 
great peril, he feels sure he was not being drowned. He had recovered 
his senses and composure enough to know that, in some unknown way, 
he was being preserved alive. 

So he makes this a part of his prayer-song, conceived then and 
there, and written out afterwards. He says in substance: "In spite 
of the direst dangers — the waves, the waters, the sea-weed and the 
great depths — yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O 
Lord, my God." His body was saved. He was preserved from cor- 
ruption, that is, from death and decay. Life was being prolonged. 
He felt that in some marvellous way the Lord was preserving him — 
perhaps for future service. Devout feelings fill his heart. He longs 
to w^orship in the sanctuary and pay his vows as he used to do, and so 
he declares in the latter part of his song. 

In later years, looking back, he could aver with still stronger and 
more intelligent emphasis: ''Thou hast brought up my life from cor- 
ruption, O Lord, my God. " A most wise and merciful Father, in a 
most wonderful way, did rescue his erring servant for very wonderful 
and far-reaching reasons. The Lord's "mighty acts" were manifest 
in every part of the transaction. In the particular exigency on the 
sea, at the very last extremity, God " prepared a great fish to swallow 
up Jonah." 

Did the Lord create the fish then? Why ask it? The verse does 
not say so. It reads, " prepared «. fish "—that is, appointed it— assigned 
it to this duty. The idea is, the Lord, in his overruling providence, 
so ordered that the animal was brought to the spot just at the precise 
time when Jonah was cast overboard, and its instrumentality would 



Swallowed. 60 

be of use in liis deliverance. The fact that the great fish was there 
just when needed, and was at once disposed to take him into its stomach, 
was as Henderson says, ''the result of a special arrangement in the 
divine plan, according to which the movements of all creatures are 
regulated, and rendered subservient to the purposes of God's uni- 
versal government." 

The fact of Jonah's entombment in the whale is strongly veri- 
fied in the New Testament. Matthew twelve, forty, shows that to 
two of the bantering sects of the Jevrs, our Lord spake positively of 
Jonah having been three days and three nights in the whale's belly, 
and affirms that this was a type of himself w^ho was to be three days 
and three nights in the heart of the earth. 

How high and far-seeing are all God's purposes! They, too, are 
all linked together — Jonah's entombment and Christ's — Jonah's deliv- 
erance and Christ's resurrection. Besides the disciplining of his 
wayward servant; the impression he intended to be made on the 
heathen mariners, and also on the heathen Ninevites; the Lord had a 
reason looking forward for hundreds of years, in having Jonah swallow- 
ed. He could as easily have kept him alive in the sea as in the fish's 
belly, but, in order to prefigure the burial of the Lord, he willed him to 
be within the fish whose belly was as the grave. 

It surely becomes us to admire and adore the wonderful working 
of our God. "The high and Lofty One who inhabiteth eternity" con- 
descends to our low estate, goes after rebellious and careless wanderers 
to bring them back agan into willing service; dwells with him that is 
of a lowly and a contrite heart, redeems our life from destruction, and 
heals all oiu- backslidings for his own name's sake. O bless him ever, 
and forget not all his benefits. 

But w^hat fish was it swallowed the truant prophet? We do not 
know for certain. Infidels have denied that it was a wbale. In fact 
they have denied the whole account, because, as they affirm, the whale, 
though often very large, has too small a throat to swallow a man. 
But the Bible does not say it was a whale. The exact term in the Old 
Testament is, "a great fish. " And the Greek word our Saviour used 
does not primarilj'- mean a whale, but a sea-monster,— any huge fish 
in general. 

Smith's Bible Dictionary affirms, however, that " the sperm whale 
has a gullet sufficiently large to admit the body of a man. " It may be 
argued also that if these whales are not now found in the Mediterranean, 
they may have been frightened out of it, in these modern days, by the 



70 The Story of Jonah. 

multiplication of ships, and may have been common there in Jonah's 
time, when "navigation was in its infancy, and ships were few and 
small, and kept mostly along the shores, ler-ving the interior undis- 
turbed. " 

But the truth is, the common idea of Jonah's fish being a whale 
has no real warrant in Scripture at all. The Old Testament simply 
speaks of a great fish. And the New Testament employs a strictly 
equivalent term. Nor is it by an}^ means important that we should 
know the exact species of fish employed by our Heavenly Father in 
doing his bidding at this time. Had it been important, the Bible 
would, no doubt, have designated definitely. 

Still it may be interesting and also helpful to note some authentic 
instances of mammoth fish having swallowed men and other large 
animals entire. One remarkable instance is quoted by Doctor Pusey 
as follows: "A natural historian of repute relates, 'in 1758, in stormy 
weather, a sailor fell overboard from a frigate in the Mediterranean. 
A shark was close by, which, as he was swimming and crying for help, 
took him in its wide throat, so that he forthwith disappeared. Other 
sailors had leaped into the sloop to help their comrade, while yet 
swimming; the captain had a gun which stood on the deck discharged 
at the fish, which struck it so that it cast out the sailor whom it had 
in its throat, who was taken up alive and little injured, by the sloop 
which had come up. The fish was harpooned, taken up on the frigate 
and dried. The captain made a present of the fish to the sailor who, 
by God's providence, had been so wonderfully preserved. The sailor 
went round Europe exhibiting it. He came to Franconia, and it was 
publicly exhibited here in Erlangen, as also at Nernberg and other 
places. The dried fish was delineated. It was twenty feet long, and 
with expanded fins nine feet wide, and weighed 3924 pounds. From 
all this, says the historian, it is probable that this was the fish of 
Jonah.' " 

Smith's Bible Dictionary also gives the outline of the same account, 
and adds other instances. 

There is another fish, however, which, from its internal shape and 
build, some wTiters think was probably the receptacle of Jonah. Its 
Norwegian name is Rorqual, which means — whale with folds. The 
special characteristic of this whole class of sea-monsters is the possession 
of "a number of longitudinal folds, nearly parallel, which commence 
under the lower lip, occupying all the space between the two branches 
of the jaw, and pass down the throat" into the abdomen. The Ency- 



Swallowed. 71 

clopedia Brittanica tells of an individual of this species 75 feet long, 
and having a mouth cavity of between 15 and 20 feet, that was stranded 
at St. Cyprian, Eastern Pyrenees in 1828. -It has, therefore, been sug- 
gested that it was in the capacious folds of a Rorqual's mouth that 
Jonah was imbedded. 

But the Bible don't say that Jonah was retained in the fish's 
miouth, but that he was swallowed. And the Rorqual, having a small 
throat, it is most unlikely that it was the fish of Jonah. 

On the other hand, reliable writers tell us that in the Mediterranean 
have been found several kinds of fish so large that they can swallow 
a man whole, and so formed as to naturally swallow their prey whole. 
Of the white shark, they aver that, having teeth merely incisive, it 
has no choice, except between swallowing its prey whole, or cutting 
off a portion of it. And its voracity leads it to swallow at once all that 
it can. 

A German naturalist of repute affirms: "The white shark is 
found of the size of 10,000 pounds, and horses have been found whole 
in its stomach." One of this sort was taken near Nice in the six- 
teenth century " approaching 4,000 pounds weight, in whose body was. 
found a man whole." 

A Lamia taken near Marseilles contained "a man in a coat of 
mail." 

It is credibly attested that the white shark of North America 
attains 'Hhe length of 30 feet; that is, one-third larger than that which 
swallowed the sailor whole. " 

In 1802 Captain Brown attested that he "found the body of a 
woman entire, with the exception of the head, within the stomach of a 
shark kiUed by him at Surinam." 

In all modern works on zoology we find 30 feet given as a common 
length for a shark's body. We are told also that its "body is usually 
only about eleven times the length of half of its lower jaw." So "a 
shark of 30 feet would have a lower jaw of nearly six feet in its semi- 
circular extent." And this jaw not being hard, stiff bone, but of a 
cartilaginous nature, giving the power of stretching and yielding 
easily, " enables us to understand how the shark can swallow animals 
as large, or larger than ourselves." 

But there is evidence of still larger species formerly existing. 
Fossil teeth have been found in Malta and elsewhere, " some of which 
naeasure four and a haK inches from the point to the base, and six 
inches from the point to the angle," proving, as scientists tell us, that 



72 The Story of Jonah. 

the fish to which they belonged, " must have much exceeded the pres- 
ent species in size." "The mouth of a fish of this sort is armed with 
400 teeth of this kind." Both the quantity and size of these teeth 
still found "proves that these creatures existed formerly in great 
numbers, and that some were of extraordinary size." The throat for 
a mouth holding such a number of teeth must have been "at least 
eight or ten feet wide." 

It is claimed that this fish is "found to this day of terrific size." 
"Celebrated for its voracity and courage, it is found in the Mediter- 
ranean and in almost every ocean. It generally keeps at the bottom, 
and rises only to satisf}'' its hunger. It is not seen near the shore, 
except when it pursues its prey, or is pursued by the mular, which it 
dreads. It swallows all sorts of aquatic animals, alive or dead, and 

pursues especially the sea-calf and the tunny 

attacks men wherever it can find them." So the Germans call it 
" menschenf resser " — men-eater. 

One writer tells of a "sea-calf the size of an ox found in one of 
these" mammoth fish, "and in another, a reindeer with horns, which 
had fallen from a rock." It attains "a length of 25 or 30 feet." In 
one weighing 1500 pounds, taken near the island of St. Marguerite, 
was "found a horse quite whole, which had apparently been thrown 
overboard, " 

Another writer gives account of one taken near Marseilles " which 
was fifteen feet long;" and also tells of "two much larger" that were 
taken two years before " in one of which had been found two tunnies 
and a man quite dressed. The fish were injured, the man not at all." 

"In 1760 there was exhibited at Berlin a requin stuffed, twenty 
feet long and nine feet in circumference where it was thickest. It had 
been taken in the Mediterranean. Its voracit}^ is so great that it 
does not spare its own species. " 

A Laplander once took a requin and fastened it to his canoe, but 
soon missed it. After some time he took a larger one, and in its 
stomach found the one he had lost. 

An Australian shark, which "measured thirty-seven feet after 
death" is certified to as having " teeth two and five-eighth inches long. " 

But we may well pause here for a little and ask, what shall we 
think of all these undoubted facts? Surely they ought to silence 
forever the objection of those who affirm it incredible that a fish swallow- 
ed Jonah. That these monsters of the Mediterranean have not only 



Swallowed. 73 

swallowed men whole, but even larger animals than men, is a thing 
that has been incontestably proven beyond all dispute. 

Therefore, cavils and doubts at this point should evermore cease. 
The Lord ''prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah," and the fish did 
the thing the Lord had set for it to do. Overboard went the prophet 
into the sea. Glad for such a morsel, wide opened the fish its great 
mouth and at one gulp took him whole inside itself. He had tried 
to get away — tried to flee "from the presence of the Lord." He had 
taken things in his own hands; had refused obedience; but was not long 
in finding out that God is the same in every place; that disobedience 
displeases him every where; and that neither prophet, nor any one 
else, can escape God-given duty by hastening outside certain terri- 
torial limits, or home surroundings. 

On this point, surely the right thought is: all soil is sacred. That 
is, the obligation of sincere and willing service to our Heavenly Father 
is certainly due from us wherever we go. Let no one, then, think he 
can lay aside christian responsibility when he goes visiting, or camping, 
or traveling, or when work takes him among religiously careless or 
godless people. 

" God is ever}" w^here, " ansY>'er young children from their catechism.. 
And next they respond: "1 cannot see him, but he always sees me." 
Then they add: "Nothing can be hid from God." This is undoubt- 
edly the teaching of the sacred writer in the Psalm v/hen he declares: 

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; 
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there; 
If I take the wings of the morning, 
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 
Even there shall thy hand lead me, 
And thy right hand shall hold me. 
If I say, Surelj" the darkness shall cover me, 
Then the night shall be light about me. 

No, we cannot escape God. If we try to flee to some Tarshish, 
the Lord will soon show us he is in every place. If we run away from 
duty in any direction, his presence is ever about us. He is near for 
our good, may be for our discipline, but undoubtedly for our good. 
And this blessed fact we will some day surely see and know. May 
Riley Smith has well written: 



74 The Story of Jonah. 

Some time, when all life's lessons have been learned, 

And sun and stars for evermore have set, 
The things which our weak judgments here have spurned^ 

The things o'er v<^hich we grieved with lashes wet, 
Will flash upon us out of life's dark night 

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue, 
And we shall see how all God's plans are right. 

And how what seemed reproof was love most true. 

Yes, our Father knows the very best manner of dealing with way- 
ward children. In his own "high and lofty" way he often disciplines 
them in love, when they and others deem the chastening a reproof and 
a judgment. 

But another lesson. He who is the Ruler over all has limitless 
resources. By countless methods he can arrest runaways from duty 
and bring them back. Speaking out of the burning bush in the Midian 
desert he called into active service Moses the meek, who had been in 
timid hiding there for forty years. By his angel he brought down- 
hearted Elijah back from under the juniper tree in the depth of the 
wilderness into bold and fearless work for him again in Israel. By 
means of a vision in the night he called Paul and Silas over into Mace- 
donia when they were trying to go elsewhere. By a dream about the 
most rich and beautiful crown in all the crown-room of heaven being 
lost to him because of his truancy from the sacred office of the ministry, 
he led Cortiandt Van Rensselaer to abandon the study of the law on 
which his heart was set, and to enter with his whole soul on the work 
of preaching the gospel of Him who had saved him. By untold ways 
in numberless cases has God turned wanderers back to himself. Often 
by the "still, small voice" heard only in our own hearts, does he come 
and "sweetly force" us into his way, which is always the better way; 
while sometimes he "mounts the storm and rides upon the wind," 
as in Jonah's case, to do the same thing. 

Under him our duty and our pri^^lege are always the same. Hear 
his voice and heed it. Follow his leading. Abide where he puts us. 
Go where he sends us. Work while the day lasts. Take courage of 
heart from, his own call, and promise, "Be thou faithful unto death, 
and I will give thee a crown of life. " Faithfulness would have brought 
blessing to Jonah. It will bring it to us. Truly with Watts we ought 
to be able most devoutly to say: 



Swallowed. 75 

O bless our God, and never cease; 

Ye saints, fulfil his praise; 
He keeps our life, maintains our peace, 

And guides our doubtful ways. 

Through watery deeps and fiery ways 

We march at his command, 
Led to possess the promised place 

By his unerring hand. 

May our wonder working God, in his mercy and love, make us 
and all his people faithful and steadfast unto the end. Amen. 



Unharmed 



And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. 
— Jonah 1:17. 

"I regard a miracle," said uncle, "to be merely such an inter- 
ference wi' the established coorse o' things as infallibly shows us the 

presence and the action o' a supernatural power 

My time is too fast, and I may hae a special reason noo for settin' my 
watch wi' the railway; and, so, see ye, I'm turnin' the hauns o't aroun' 
backwards. Noo, wad ye say that I hae violated the laws o' a watch? 
True, I hae dune what watchdom, wi'a' its laws, coodna hae dune for 
itself; but I hae dune violence to nane o' its laws. My action is only 
the interference o' a superior intelligence for a suitable end; but I hae 
suspended nae law, violated nae law. Weel, then, instead o' the watch, 
say the universe, instead o' movin' the hauns, say God acting worthily 
o' himself; and we hae a' that I contend for in a miracle; that is, the 
unquestionable presence o' an Almighty haun workin' the divine 
will." 



VIII. 

UNHARMED 

Alive, in such a place, for so long a time, and no harm come to 
Tiim! Able to breathe and live and think and pray, quote Scripture 
and worship God; doubtless to repent, resolve, promise obedience, and 
plan better service in the future, — it all seems amazing; far out of the 
ordinarj'-, indeed. Such a marvel never happened before or since. 

What shall we call it? A miracle? Such it was beyond all doubt. 
Yes, the keeping of Jonah alive and unharmed, for so long a time, in 
such a place, was surely very high above the common and the usual. 
This is freely admitted; even earnestly claimed. 

That a human subject, who had been accustomed for years to 
breathe the vital air, could exist without respiration, or upon the foul 
air in a fish's stomach, for the length of time here specified, without 
miraculous interposition, has never been proven. Abenezra, a scholarly 
Hebrew of an early da}^, as quoted by Henderson, takes the onl}^ posi- 
tion that can be consistently maintained when he afiftrms: "No man 
has the power of living in the bowels of a fish for a single hour; how 
much less for such a number of hours, except b}^ the operation of a 
miracle." 

Nor other than this is the clear teaching of our Lord, as a study 
of Matthew 12:39 will show. The Scribes and Pharisees, in an unbe- 
lieving, contentious spirit, had asked for a " sign. " They use the very 
word that in Luke 23:8, John 2:11, and other places, is translated 
miracle. The term may be so rendered here. They asked that Jesus 
should work a miracle to gratify their curiosity. They wanted some- 
thing like what was given Moses on Sinai, or in the desert. Wanted 
thunder, lightning, a comet, the manna, or the sun to stand still as in 
Joshua's day, — some miracle from heaven," they require. 

But Jesus answered: ''An evil and adulterous generation seeketh 
after a miracle, and there shall no miracle be given it, but the miracle 
of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah v/as tliree days and three nights 
in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three 
nights in the heart of the earth." Our Lord's words on this occasion 
are a proof that Jonah's preservation was a miracle. 

But in what did the miracle consist? Surely, not in the sudden, 
violent and extraordinary storm; nor in the fact that the fish was at 
the place just in the nick of time; nor yet in the fact that it at once 



80 The Story of Jonah. 

gulped Jonah down whole and unharmed. These things may be called 
unusual, even marvellous. No one of them was necessarily miraculous. 
It was easy for God to bring them about in the ordinary working of 
his mighty overrulings. 

But that Jonah was able to breathe and live, for so long a time, 
in the foul air of the m.onster's stomach, this, being above the ordinary, 
as we see it, is what is called miraculous. 

And why is this name used? What does it mean? 

Surely, not that it " is against, or contrary to, the laws of nature," 
as a miracle has sometimes been defined. We do not aflirm this at 
all. What we understand to be the true idea may be stated thus: 
Any event, such as the preservation of Jonah, which, in our estima- 
tion, is different from, and higher than, the ordinary workings of the 
Almighty Ruler, and thus appears to us to be extraordinary — such 
event, or transaction, we call a miracle. 

But tlie thing to be observed nov,- is : these higher workings are no 
less according to tlie course of the divine will than what we are pleased 
to term tlie ordinary mode of his procedure. To Omnipotence there 
is no greater or less. The creation of the universe, of the starry heavens, 
or of a fly, are alike to him, — simple acts of the divine will. In each 
case, he spake and it was done. As one has well said: ''What to 
men seem the greatest miracles, or the least, are all alike to liim.— the 
mere 'Let it be' of his all holy will, acting in a different way for one 
and the same end,"— that end being the exhibition and proof of his 
power and presence and interest condescendingly exhibited for the 
discipline, instruction and guidance of his intelligent creatures, who 
ought to serve him of free choice. 

"How long," exclaims the same writer, "will men think of God 
as if he were man; of the Creator as if he were a creature; as though 
the creation were but one piece of machinery which is to go on ringing 
its regular changes until it shall be worn out, and God were shut up, 
as a sort of main-spring within it, who might be allowed to be primal 
Force, to set it in motion, but must not be allowed to vary what he 
has once made?" "Poor hood-winked souls, who would extinguish 
for themselves the Light, of the world, in order that it may not eclipse 
the rushlight of their own theory." 

Man's theory is often far below God 's will and wisdom and 
power as shown in his word and in his works. It was just as easy 
for Omnipotence to keep Jonah alive three days and three nights in 
the fetid air of his submerged tomb, as to enable him, or us, to breathe 



Unharmed. 81 

the pure air of heaven for a life time, God's workings in what we call 
nature, and his workings above what we call nature, form one har- 
monious whole. Each was determined by him from the beginning. 

What we have been calling interruptions of the law of nature, are 
as much a part of the Father's eternal plan as what has seemed to us 
ordinary occurrences. They are not disturbances of his laws, but a 
part of their predetermined outworking. Before the universe was 
made he had willed to do them, as the Scriptures declare: "Known 
unto God are all his works from the beginning of eternity. " 

Our short sightedness leaves us to low conceptions. We think 
of nature being what is seen in our Father's ordinary workings. Where- 
as, nature is what at any time, and for any purpose, seemeth good to 
him who doeth all things well. Hence all his works, those which to us 
seem ordinary, and those which seem extraordinary, — all, in their 
several times and circumstances subserve the same end, which is to 
magnify the manifold wisdom of God. 

Carlyle says; "When I drive along the turnpike, come to the 
toll gate, and putting a penny in the slot, the gate swings back on its 
hinges, its opening is a miracle to my horse, but not to me, for I under- 
stand the mechanical device that accomplishes the fact. Just so, in a 
higher realm, what seems miracle to us is no miracle to God, but simply 
the ordinary working out of the laws he at first ordained, and ever 
keeps in operation." 

"A story is told of a clock in a cathedral tower so constructed 
that it strikes the century as it ordinarily strikes the hours. At mid- 
night, when a century closes a little wheel turns, a pin slides into the 
appointed place, and the bell that tolled twice a day from one to twelve, 
now tolls a hundred times, sounding the requiem of the expiring year. 
That clock, for a century, had only marked the hours. No living man 
had heard it strike more than twelve. This seemed to be the normal 
law of its being. But it was originally constructed, not to violate that 
law, but to add to it a wondrous thing once in a hundred years. When 
the ignorant masses heard that prolonged tolling at midnight, no doubt 
they cried, " a miracle," But for that tolling the machinery had been 
arranged long years before. And thus, events which occur so rarely 
in what we call the operations of nature that we regard them as mira- 
culous, were all provided for by God when he made the world." 

This story teaches us how to interpret the rescue of Jonah, and 
also how to view every other marvellous work the Lord has done at 
different times. Each was a part of his eternal plan, and came in 
just when he had before determined that it should. 



82 The Story of Jonah. 

Nor will we stagger at one miracle more than at another. We will 
not hesitate to believe this high working of the Almighty and All Wise 
Creator in Jonah's case any more than any other told us in the sacred 
records. 

Some receive other miracles, but reject this. But was Jonah's 
preservation within the mammoth fish any greater work of God than 
was the preservation of the Hebrew youth in the burning fiery furnace? 
any greater than the sending of fire from heaven to burn Elijah's 
drenched sacrifice? Some will cavil at Jonah's being brought forth 
alive after three days remarkable entombment, who stagger not either 
at the raising of Lazarus after he had been actually dead in the grave 
POUR days, or at the resurrection of Christ by the Spirit of God after 
he had slept in death tlu-ee days and three nights in Joseph's tomb. 

But wherein is the consistency of such a position? The argu- 
ment of any objector against a miracle in Jonah's case, lies equally 
against every other of which account is given in the Bible. So that 
he who denies a miracle in this instance, must, to be consistent, deny 
all miracles; and then we would lack one of the very highest proofs 
that God ever inspired and sent chosen servants to make his will 
known to the human race. 

No, we must admit miracles, or what we are accustomed to call 
miracles. Undoubtedly they took place just as the record in each 
case says. Indisputably, too, it is just as easy for the omnipotent God 
to work in these extraordinary ways, as in those we observe as his 
ordinary and regular methods. So, we will not stumble at any thing 
the almighty Father ever did to impress men's minds, and to convince 
that he is the ever living, all powerful Jehovah who demands obedience, 
and who has a right to receive it, from every creature. 

But pass on now to notice some of the lofty and far-reaching 
reasons why this miracle in Jonah's case was wrought. 

A high purpose, of course, centred in Jonah himself. It was 
meant to affect him. It was intended to discipline him into submission, 
and bring him to a suitable awe of God, who worketh when and where 
and how he pleaseth. 

One thing, he must learn that he cannot escape God. He reck- 
lessly tried it He fled the land, but got in peril on the sea. The 
tempest overtook him, the lot accused him, the sea received him, the 
fish enclosed him, and, because he had set himself against obeying 
his Maker, he was carried, a culprit, by his great prison house back 
towards the place where he had been sent, and where he was unwilling 
to go. 



Unharmed. 83 

God did not lead Jonah at once straight from the vessel to his 
mission field — that great city — "but the sailors gave him over to the 
sea, the sea to the vast fish, the fish to God, God to the Ninevites, and 
thus, tlirough this long circuit, brought back his fugitive." In this 
wonderful way Jonah was taught, and we are all taught, that it is 
impossible to escape the presence and power of him with whom we 
have to do. 

But the rebellious prophet must also learn obedience. " The Lord 
spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." 
How he spake to the fish we know not, nor need we speculate. When he 
is described in the Bible as commanding the irrational animals, or the 
elements, or any part of the creation, the meaning is that he is con- 
trolling them according to the good pleasure of his will. Thus dragons 
and all deeps and stormy wind are said to fulfil his word. 

Irrational creatures have walls of their own. But God somehow 
controls them when he chooses. He had commanded his servant 
Jonah, and he disobeyed. In some way he commanded the fish, he 
laid his will upon it, and it forthwith obeyed. This was a pattern to 
the rebellious prophet after his release. He might thus learn to implic- 
itly obey his Maker, Ruler and Friend. 

But again, Jonah should learn to be mild and charitable. The 
crew of that vessel unwittingly took the runaway aboard. And, 
when shut up to it, they very relunctantly and tenderly cast him over 
into the sea. " The waves received him and choked him not, the vast 
fish swallowed him and destroj^ed him not, but both the huge monster 
and the elements gave back their deposit safe to God." By all these 
things the prophet should learn to be mild and tender, not more cruel 
than the untaught mariners, or the wild v>^aves, or the dumb animals. 

Jonah had duties to the Ninevites. He ought to think of, and 
work for, them with interest and good will. They needed saving, 
and he, a saved man, should long for their rescue. This would bless 
both him and them. Kindliness in his heart would help gain him 
access to theirs, and also rebound blessedly upon himself. 

The rule is universal. Every man owes good wishes to every 
other. The inspired word requires this, especially of christians. Meek- 
ness, gentleness, goodness, charity, are qualities all should earnestly 
covet and cultivate, for these are precious graces of the Holy Spirit; 
are commanded in strong terms in the Bible; and are taught us, in 
many ways, in the great book of nature. Therefore, beloved, "be 
pitiful, be courteous." "Put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humble- 



84 The Story of Jonah. 

ness of mind, meekness, long suffering, " remembering also that other 
precious word of our Lord which assures, " Blessed are the meek, for 
they shall inherit the earth." 

But besides these lessons to Jonah himself, the miracle in his case, 
consisting in his marvellous preservation and escape, was meant to be 
an impressive lesson to both the Ninevites and the Israelites. The 
prophet's condition under punishment, shut up as he was from the 
outer world, was intended to be, as much as possible, the emblem of 
death. Thus he was a present type, both to the people of Nineveh 
and Israel, of the death of sin. 

Moreover, his deliverance from his entombment was a type to 
them of the spiritual resurrection which immediately follovvs repent- 
ance. Jonah was delivered as soon as he repented and raised his prayer 
of thanksgiving. So a sinner repents, accepts Christ, and at once is 
born from the dead. He has a nevv=' nature begotten within him just 
then. By the power of the Holy Ghost he is raised out of the death 
of sin into the life of Christ. The life and the love of Christ are now 
begun in his soul. 

Speaking of this work, this experience, the Apostle describes it as 
" risen with Christ. " Christ is the figure to us; Jonah was to the people 
of Israel and Nineveh. They needed raising to new life in God, should 
seek it, and might obtain it, as Jonah out of his living tomb Vv^as brought 
forth alive to breathe the blessed air of heaven. 

Another thing: This experience of the prophet wherein the 
devourer became his preserver, strikingly prefigured the infinite 
resources of God in mercy as well as in judgment. How plain is the 
lesson here, that God will never run short of means in any moment of 
extremity. The universe is at his bidding, and he can pick up just 
what he wants and where he wants it. Limitless in power and mercy 
must he be, or he could not have struck out such a way to save Jonah 
in that thrilling exigenc}^. Jehovah-jireh — the Lord will provide — 
is his name. At his will the nearest thicket on mount Moriah, in the 
very crisis of need, supplied a ram as a substitute for the offering of 
Isaac. 

And just so was it, too, with device for the soul's rescue. When 
no mortal could find a ransom; nor any sinner answer for one of a 
thousand of his sins, then God laid help upon "One who is Might}^" 
He brought deliverance out of the very jaws of apparent defeat and 
ruin. In infinite wisdom he devised a plan by which man, a sinner, 
shut out by justice from mercy, could yet be saved in perfect consist- 
ency with both mercy and judgment. 



Unharmed. 85 

"Deep in unfathomable mifids 

Of never failing skill; 
He treasures up his bright designs, 

And works his sovereign will." 

Yes, 3^es, our God is absolutely unhampered and boundless in his 
mighty resources. 

Then, a still farther design was to make Jonah's three days and 
nights imprisonment, and deliverance afterward, a future type of 
Jesus' literal death for sin and his resurrection by the spirit of God. 

This is one of the things in Vv^hich Jonah and Christ were alike. 
Both were victims to d.eath for God's anger against sin — Jonah for 
his own, Christ for his people's sins laid on him to bear. Jonah was 
miraculously rescued from tlireatened death. Christ was miracu- 
lously raised from real death. The Jews looked for a Messiah glori- 
ously coming in the clouds of heaven. That Messiah came in a deeper 
humiliation than that of Jonah. Jonah lay alive in the bosom of the 
fish. Christ slept in death '' in the heart of the earth, " '' The sign 
of the prophet Jonas" means the evidence that was given to the people 
of Nineveh that Jonah was from God. His preservation and deliver- 
ance from his li^^ng tomb proved it. So Jesus' miraculous preserva- 
tion and resurrection from actual death proved, beyond all cavil and 
doubt, he was from the Supreme Ruler and Lord. 

But again, Jonah's entombment and rescue gave v/eight to his 
message to that heathen people. So Christ's death and resurrection 
are the onl}' foundation for repentance. Sincere sorrow for sin derives 
all its efficac}^ from what Christ has done in giving his life and taking 
it again. Yea, "he is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give 
repentance and remission of sins." God's mercy in restoring guilty 
Jonah gave the Ninevites hope of mercy. Our Lord's resurrection 
assures all sinners that God is now fully reconciled to man, — recon- 
ciled by Christ's death as man's Sin offering and Substitute. 

Of all these various purposes of the miracle, this last is the most 
practical one for us. Christ risen is our hope. "He bare our sins in 
his own body on the tree." He expired and lay in the tomb for our 
iniquity. He rose again for our justification. He is our Daysman 
and Mediator between God and us. Knowing this from Bible teaching, 
Bernard, in the eleventh century, furnished a fitting heart cry for each 
of us when he wrote : 



86 The Story of Jonah. 

What thou, my Lord, hast suffered 

Was all for sinners' gain: 
Mine, mine v/as the transgression, 

But thine the deadly pain. 
Lo, here I fall, my Saviour! 

'Tis I deserve thy place; 
Look on me with thy favor. 

Vouchsafe to me thy grace. 

Well for us if we each have our souls ever so attuned to the sweet 
words of Miss Havergal that we can, in truth, make them our own, 
and often use them: 

I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus, 

Trusting only Thee; 
Trusting Thee for full salvation. 

Great and free. 
I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus, 

Never let me fall; 
I am trusting Thee for ever. 

And for all. 



Praying" 



And Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. 
Jonah 2:1. 

The general conception of prayer is too narrow. Many Christian 
people almost limit the idea of prayer to petition. To them the essence 
of prayer is the asking of God for things agreeable to his will. But 
so to think of prayer is utterly to misunderstand it. True prayer does 
not consist only, or even mainly, of petition. At its best, praj^er is 
the expression of the soul's fullness as much as of its want. It is the out- 
pouring of the heart to God. Prayer, in short, is fellowship. No 
narrower conception of it will suffice. 

— Rev. G. H. C. Macgregor. 



IX. 

PRAYING. 

This is the one thing we are told about Jonah when shut up in his 
sea-monster tomb. He called upon God. What else he thought and 
did is not stated. 

It seems legitimate, however, to surmise that his mind was very 
bus^^ No doubt he meditated much. His feelings, too, would surely 
go through a most agitated revulsion. 

In that narrow home where, b}^ miracle, he was not consumed, but 
breathed and retained his senses, he, most likely, repented much that 
he had ever offended his Master; marvelled at the Lord's wonderful 
way of dealing with him; adored the divine Majesty with wonderful 
awe for his judgments; and promised and pledged future obedience. 

But of all that he thought, felt, experienced and purposed during 
his three days and three nights of darkness, we are not informed. 
Just one thing is singled out and told us. Jonah prayed. He " prayed 
unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly. " Besides thinking and 
repenting this was about the only thing he could do, as it was the m.ost 
sensible thing. If the Lord did not hear and send help, there was no 
hope for him. 

His lofty, splendid hymn, called a pra3''er, is recorded in the second 
chapter of his book. 

The first thing to note about it is its orderly arrangement. It falls 
naturally into three parts, or divisions. In each part the two elements 
of danger and deliverance, of need and help, appear. But these ele- 
ments enter into the successive divisions in very different proportions. 
Faith grows, and the prospect brightens, at each fresh stage of the 
hymn. 

The first part rises to prayer, the second to confidence, the third 
to thankfulness and praise. 

The first division is made up of the second, third and fourth verses; 
the second division embraces the fifth and sixth verses; while the third 
division includes the seventh, eighth and ninth verses. 

In the first division there are three things. The second verse is an 
introduction, containing the general subject of the hymn: I cried 
and was heard, I was in trouble and was delivered. The third verse 
gives a description of the danger and distress; cast into the deep, sur- 
rounded by floods, overwhelmed by billows and waves. The fourth 



90 The Story of Jonah. 

verse shows faith triumphing over despondency and prompting to 
prayer; though cast out of thy sight, I will look toward thy holy temple. 

In the second division there is first, a still more vivid description 
of the danger and distress; the waters surrounded me so as to endanger 
my soul, or life; the depth shut me in; the weeds entangled me; I 
went down to the very bottom; the gates of the earth were barred 
and made fast upon me. Then, second, the last part of the sixth verse 
declares deliverence not onh^ prayed for, but possessed, "thou hast 
brought up my life from corruption." Here is assurance. 

Passing to the third division, note again three things. First, in 
the seventh verse a declaration that "prayer, offered in danger and 
distress, has been heard." Second, the eighth and part of the ninth 
verse promise that the deliverance which God has granted "shall be 
acknowledged with sacrifices of thanksgiving and vows joyfully paid." 
Then, the last part of the ninth verse affirms that all salvation is of 
God, just as this representative instance shows. 

Surely, Jonah must have been urider the direct and sure guidance 
of the unerring Spirit of the living God, to become the author of such 
a systematic, logicallv arranged, and lofty composition at such a time 
and in such a place. We may vrell study it. 

In doing so note next, the character of his prayer. 

It is really a thanksgiving. Just as in first Samuel 2:1-10 we are 
told that Hannah prayed; 3'^et there is not a word of petition in all her 
utterance. Paul and Silas, imprisoned in the Phillippian jail " prayed 
and sang praises," we read. But Alford translates: "praying, sung 
praises," or "in their prayers v/ere singing praises." 

And what does this variety of reading teach us? Clearly that the 
ESSENCE of true devotion is the great thing This is of much more 
moment than the sharp distinction which, in modern times, we are 
accustomed to make between prayer and praise This distinction is 
not marked in Bible times, as Hannah's prayer and others show Read 
carefully, also, Jonah's words, as here recorded, and find description 
of his danger, expression of his faith, a declaration of vows made, and 
promise to fulfill them with thanksgiving, but no direct plea or peti- 
tion. He speaks of prayer, it is true, but always in the past tense. 
He reverently says: "I cried unto the Lord." "He heard me." 
"Thou hast brought up m}^ life from destruction." "M3" prayer came 
in unto thee." 

How shall we interpret and understand? The simplest way is to 
suppose, with many Bible scholars, " that Jonah had prayed to God 



Praying. * 91 

in the prospect and in the act of being cast into the sea; while he was 
being buffeted by the waves, and sinking into the depths; and in the 
agony of being swallowed by the fish. During all this time, whether 
his lips spake or not, his mind was fixed in that intent, Godward atti- 
tude and posture, which is the truest prayer. Now, however, when he 
finds himself alive and unharmed in that strange abode, he prays no 
longer, but offers thanksgiving for the measure of deliverance already 
granted him in answer to those former prayers," and mingles these 
"with joyful anticipations of the yet further deliverance which the 
last verse of the chapter records. " 

Taking this view, which commends itself as the most natural, it 
seems probable that Jonah's h3niin of devotion and worship ''was 
offered at the end of the three days and nights, and was followed inune- 
diately by his release." 

But mark also: Jonah recognized the only Source of help. "He 
prayed unto the Lord his God. " Yes. though he had tried to run away 
from "the presence of the Lord," yet Jehovah was his God still. His 
God when he was in rebellion as much as he was before and after. 

This case of Jonah was very much like that of the prodigal son. 
Though that son had unthankfully left home, and lost, for a time, filial 
affection, yet the parental relation had not changed. The heart- 
broken man who had been his father before his scape-grace conduct, 
was his father still, with pity and longing in his heart, and readiness 
to receive the wanderer the moment he came back penitent. Away 
off there in a far country in a sad plight he did not acknowledge his 
father. But, as soon as he came to himself, he did. " I will arise and 
go to my father" was then his vow. This he did at once, and as soon 
as home his very first word was, "father. " 

The sinner, the unconverted, impenitent one, does not trustingly, 
lovingly and often say, "My Father in heaven." But as soon as he 
comes to himself, he then cries out, " My Lord and My God. " Jonah, 
truant for a time but now penitent, knows that the Lord is his God still, 
and he now acknowledges this by calling on him in prayer. 

And this word — penitent — suggests another characteristic of 
true prayer. It is a sign of a change of heart. It was a sign in Jonah's 
case, in the prodigal's, in Paul's. "Behold he prayeth," was the 
declaration of the Lord himself, made to Ananias, as a proof that Saul 
of Tarsus was a changed man — that he was now a christian. His bitter 
opposition to God's way of sah^ation through Jesus the Lord had 
melted away, and now, penitent, he was praying. His praying proved 



92 * The Story of Jonah. 

his penitence. So Jonah's. His rebeUion and stubbornness are now 
gone. Again he is on loving terms with his heavenly Father, and 
calls upon him as a trusting child. 

''Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 
The Christian's native air." 

Whoever truly and en joy ably breathes out prayer to Christ has 
the life of Christ in his soul. 

Oh, well, would it be if every wanderer in heart would heed the 
plea of Gregory, one of the early christian fathers, when he exhorts: 
"Let the sinner, too," as well as Jonah, ''cry aloud, whom, departing 
from God, the storm of desires overwhelmed, the malignant enemy 
devoured, the waves of this present world sucked under. Let him 
own that he is in the depth, that so his prayer may reach to God. " 
The blessing of heaven will always follow sincere prayer: 

"Lord, incline me to repent, 
Help me now my fall lament; 
Deeply my revolt deplore: 
Weep, believe, and sin no more. " 

After any and every spell of rebellion and waywardness, each one 
ought to return unto the Lord his God with sincere sorrow of heart. 
God is ever right, never wrong. Whenever there is wrong it is in us, 
not in him. Our wisdom, duty and privilege are to act on the earnest 
plea of inspiration : " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighte- 
ous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord who will have 
mercy upon him, and unto our God who will abundantly pardon." 

But another thing: Jonah's experience hints also that true prayer 
is ever sincere. It is the real cry of the heart unto God. The voice 
may be used, but it is the heart that prays. 

Tertullian and Augustine have each put the thought quaintly. 
The former says: " Not of the voice but of the heart is God the hearer, 
as he is the seer. Do the ears of God wait for sound? How then 
could the prayer of Jonah, from the inmost belly of the fish, through 
the bowels of so great a creature, out of the very bottomless depths, 
through so great a mass of v/aters, make its way to heaven?" The 
words of the latter are: "Loud crying to God is not with the voice, 
but with the heart. Many, silent with their lips, have cried aloud 
with their heart; many, noisy with their lips, could, with heart turned 



Praying. 93 

away, obtain nothing. If then thou criest, cry within where God 
heareth. " 

These quotations go to the root of the matter. True prayer is 
the inner and deep longing of the soul directed to Him who helpeth 
from on high. 

Of coiu"se the use of the voice is not forbidden, and is not a detri- 
ment. We are so constituted that it usually is a help to us. It 
intensifies our heart cry — gives vent to it. The Psalmist declares: 
"I cried unto God with my voice, — and he gave ear unto me." The 
meaning is, he gave vocal expression to his heart plea, and that heart 
plea was heard and graciously answered. 

So we are encouraged to speak out our petitions to the Lord. 
But if voice is gone, or there is not strength to use it, our plea may 
reach the mercy seat w^ithout vocalization. 

" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 

Uttered, or unexpressed; 
The motion of a hidden fire 

That trembles in the breast. " 

The great lesson for each one to learn on this point is, that true 
worshipers are those who ''worship the Father in spirit and in truth," 
and that such are they whom the Father "seeketh to worship him." 
Lack of sincere heart service is mockery, and unacceptable to the 
hearer of prayer, who is a spirit, and who only lends ear to Spirit- 
begotten longings and cries of the heart. 

But this subject also suggests a thought about the place of prayer. 
Any place may be an oratory. Imprisoned within a great fish, and 
carried to the depth of the sea, Jonah sought unto God. A field, 
garden or mountain; a cellar, garret or haymow; may be a closet for 
praj^er. Communion of soul may be held with the Lord on the busy 
street, in the crowded store, in company or solitude, in lying down or 
rising up, on the porch or at the plow. Once a godly minister on horse 
back, thinking he was all alone, was praying aloud as he rode along, 
when a young man in the thick underbrush at the road side, over- 
hearing, was deeply and lastingly impressed by the words of petition 
so unexpectedly wafted to his ears. That was a good spot for a min- 
ister's devotion. No place is amiss for heart cries to heaven. 

But though this is true, every one v/ill find it a great help to have 
a special place regularly visited. There we soon learn to feel at home, 
and so experience less distraction. This is according to the law of 



94 The Story of Jonah. 

mind. Men do better work at manual labor, better work as students 
and accountants, when they have become wedded to places. So there 
was some philosophy in the remark of the new boy at school when he 
said: "I missed the right answer because I hadn't yet got the hang 
of the school-house." He needed to get accustomed to his surround- 
ings, and to feel at home. 

A christian lady, boarding at a hotel, once astonished her pastor 
by saying her closet of prayer was the drawing room where balls and 
parties were held nearly every night. But he soon thought approvingly 
when she went on to explain that neither morning, noon or night could 
she be alone in her own room, but by rising an hour earlier every 
morning, she found the drawing room the quietest place in all the 
building. And there she had her daily season of meditation and 
prayer. Rejoiced was the pastor at the determination of a christian 
woman to be alone at some time, and in some place, each dav with 
her God. 

The call to each one of us is: "Enter thou into thy closet, and 
when thou hast shut thy door," so as to be free from interruption, and 
free from all fear of interruption, "pray." There must be a stated 
time and a special place, or this duty will be elbowed along out of the 
way of other duties during the day, and, after while, elbowed clear 
out of use. We would well remember that as long as we are in this 
world good habits are a great help to us. The habit of going regularly 
to the mercy seat is of priceless value. Then, as " we won't give up the 
Bible," so neither let us ever give up our regular seasons of approach 
to God, nor, by any means, omit our freqeunt ejaculatory pra5'^ers at 
irregular times and places. 

The recreant prophet's experience suggests there are some special 
times for earnest soul-crying unto God. His was prompted by his 
trial — his sudden, great, unexpected and unheard of trial. The 
terror of his situation made it seem to him as the depth of the grave. 
His poetic phrase is, "The belly of hell." And his more literal terms, 
as he was unwillingly carried in utter darkness a living captive, away 
under the sea, were, "All th}^ waves and thy billows go over me." 
"The waters compass me about, even to the soul; the depth closes me 
round about, the weeds are wrapped around my head." 

In a sad case he was, truly. There was no help in self. The 
only One who can now bring deliverance is he who alone controls and 
governs "all his creatures and all their actions." So a living prisoner 
in a living prison, he cried unto the Lord his God in his affliction. 



Praying. 95 

And this is the lesson for us. Wlien in an}' trial, it is a blessed 
privilege to call upon our sympathizing Lord. At our stated times 
and places, or in any place, at any hour or moment, we may seek divine 
help in trouble. In fact this is one of the very blessings and purposes 
of trouble. A kind and wise Heavenly Father permits it to come upon 
us for our good. The Psalmist says, "It is good for me that I have 
been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. Before I was afflicted 
I went astray; but now have I kept thy word. " 

This is no strange or uncommon experience. There are many 
in our day, as well as in David's, who can truly say it was their sinking 
in the horrible pit and the miry clay that prompted their pleading 
cry to heaven — a cry that became availing. In their extremity they 
caUed upon the Lord and he inclined unto them, brought them up out 
of the mire and the pit, established their goings, set their feet on a 
rock, and put a new song in their mouth, even that of praise unto 
their God. Once they sang dolefully, but now thankfully, joyously. 
Blessed is he who has learned the long-ago most surely established path 
from disappointment and affliction to the altar of prayer. There is 
such a path. 

" From every stormy -wind that blows, 
From every, swelling tide of woes, 
There is a calm, a sure retreat, 

'Tis found beneath the mercy seat." 

The Roman Centurian learned that path, the Syro-Phoenician 
woman, too, when affliction in servant and daughter prompted their 
earnest petitions to the Lord, the Son of David. And thousands upon 
thousands of others have learned the same lesson since. Let us not 
forget that all our trials and afflictions, great or small, protracted or 
brief, should teach us to seek help from Him whose help is ever a 
benediction, never a hurt. 



Scriptural 



All thy billows and thy waves passed over me Yet 

hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O, Lord, my God. — ■ 
Jonah 2:3,6. 

Christ loves us a great deal too well to give our own foolish and 
selfish wills the keys of his treasure-house. The condition of our 
getting what we will is our willing what he desires; and unless our 
prayers are a great deal more the utterances of the submission of our 
wills to his than they are the attempt to impose ours upon him, they 
will not be answered. We get our wishes when our wishes are moulded 
by his Word. — Dr. A. Maclaren. 



X. 

SCRIPTURAL 

Enlightened prayer uses Scripture. Jonah packed his full of Bible 
thoughts. Within the compass of eight short verses he makes nine 
quotations from the word of God, all of them from the Psalms. The 
Lord allows us to do this. He is pleased when we plead his own 
promises and invitations. He smiles graciously when adoringly we 
use the lofty terms he himself has given us in his own word. 

Our prayers would be enriched very much if we would stud}^ and 
commit and employ more scripture in them. Of course, not just for 
the purpose of quoting Scripture, but for the purpose of making the 
passages quoted the real expression of our wants, our desires, our 
thanksgiving and our adoration. 

Some have not studied the word of the Lord much yet, and so 
have but few verses in mind. But who cannot cry out, ''God, be 
merciful to me a sinner. " Or who cannot plead. " Create in me a 
clean heart?" or call in earnestness, "Lord, save, I perish ?" 

Each of these expressions is a Scripture exactly suited to the 
wants of every sincere seeker at the throne of grace. 

Or, without exact quotation, the petitioner may incorporate 
Scripture expressions and Scripture thoughts into his own sentences. 
In a number of verses Jonah did this. As encouraging him to call on 
God, he quoted: "I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me," mean- 
ing, I formerly prayed and got answer, so I now have hope in God and 
believe he will hear me again. As an expression of his need of divine 
help he borrowed from one place the thought: "All thy billows and 
thy waves have gone over me," and from another: "The waters 
compassed me about. " In the fourth verse, instead of using the 
simple, prose, trite and common expression, "I pray," he adopted 
Scripture phraseology, and employed the more lofty and enriched 
sentence: "I look again toward thy holy temple." This is one 
characteristic of his prayer all the way through, and a beautiful one. 

But after all, of course," the great thing is to utter the real cry of 
the heart unto God, — to "offer up" our sincere desires to him. We 
need not run after Scripture, nor strain after it, when on our knees, 
but the thought is: the more familiar we are with the very language 
of God's word, the m.ore frequently, when at prayer, v/ill we find 
■its inspired phraseology presenting itself to our minds as the very 
best expression of our own real need; penitence, gratitude and adora- 
tion. 



100 The Story of Jonah. 

But what else do we learn from Jonah? 

One thing: to have hope. Whoever, apparently, was more shut 
out from hope than he? Yet hear him encourage his faith thus "Thou 
hast brought up," — meaning in former experience, — "Thou hast 
brought up my life from the pit, O Lord, my God." "When my soul 
fainted within me, I remember thee, Lord, and my prayer came in 
unto thee, into thy holy temple." He is arguing reverently with the 
Lord, as the intensely exercised soul is allowed to do, and has at least 
some hope that the Lord will hear and help, as he had often done on 
former occasions. 

It is a question whether any prayer would ever be offered up, if 
the offerer of it had no hope at all of answer. The Psalmist David 
was once almost utterly despondent. Absalom had rebelled, Joab 
his chief general was a traitor. David himself was an exile from his 
capital, surrounded by insulting foes. The darkness on his soul was 
so oppressive that his piteous cry was: "Why art thou cast down, 
O my soul, and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God." 
This cry he repeated over and over again. We have it at least three 
times in the Psalm, and he may have used it oftener. Its repetition 
helped him; for soon, it would seem right at once, hope sprang up in 
his heart, and he emphatically assured his halting faith with the 
words: "For I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my coun- 
tenance, and my God. " 

This was but an isolated and uncommon experience of that man 
of God. Usually, hope was in the ascendant, tiear him at another 
time: "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, 
only makest me dwell in safety." No doubt, no hesitation, full of 
faith and trust,— this is the lesson for us. We cannot keep ourselves 
through the night; cannot ward off robber, cyclone or sickness. So 
we commit ourselves to our Heavenly Father in quiet trust. "He 
giveth his beloved sleep," while he watches over each one as a mother 
over her slumbering babe in its crib by her couch. "I will lay me 
down in peace. " — no over anxiety, no tossing distraction — " and sleep" 
— not stay awake in worry and solicitude. I do not need to. The 
Lord maketh me dwell in safety. And he is the only one who can do 
it, and does it. Three-hundred and sixty-five times last year he did it, 
and about as many times each year I have lived. I have sweet hope 
in him. Every night, in my private, heart to heart talk with him, I 
dismiss all over-anxious care, and say: "I lay me down in peace, and 
sleep, for thou. Lord, makest me dwell in safety." 

Friend, who kept you all through last night in quiet slumber? 



Scriptural. 101 

Before you close your eyes to night will you have a little talk with 
him, in sweet assurance, and hope committing yourself to his care till 
morning's dawn? Then arise, thank him, and ask his protection and 
guidance for the day? Yes, tlirough the day as well as through the 
night we are dependent on heaven's keeping. In all besetments and 
ailments in life our Father's help is needed. And more, it may be 
expected. "He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there 
shall no evil touch thee. In famine he shall redeem thee from death; 
and in war, from the power of the sword. Thou shalt be hid from 
the scourge of the tongue; neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction 
when it cometh. At destruction and famine thou shalt laugh; neither 
shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth." 

If we could only remember it, and think of it as we should, "The 
Lord is our Refuge and Strength in every time of trouble. " So, why 
not hope in him? If Jonah could have hope in his terrible situation, 
surely no posture of circumstances can ever deprive us of the same 
buoyant grace. Therefore, "Hope thou in God." for he is the "Help 
of thy countenance, and thy God." 

But note again: Thanksgiving and profession belong to genuine 
prayer. Jonah said: "I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of 
thanksgiving; I will pay that which I have vowed." Hast thou, 
dear friend, accepted the Lord as thy Saviour? Then do not forget 
his benefits. 'He forgiveth all thy iniquities, healeth all thy dis- 
eases, redeemeth thy life from destruction, crowneth thee with loving- 
kindnesses and tender mercies, satisfieth thy mouth with good things, 
executeth righteousness and judgment for all oppressed, is merciful 
and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. ' Surely, a heart 
that feels right will be immediately prompted to thank him, and to 
acknowledge him before others. This is a very little thing, is it not? 
The Lord expects it, — asks it. 

Sanford Cobb, Persian missionary, once said to a young man: 
"Do you ever feel thankful when God blesses you?" "Always," 
was the reply. "Did j'ou ever teU him so?" "Well, I don't know 
that I have." "Well, try it, my j^oung friend, try it, try it. TeU 
him so; tell him aloud; tell him so that you are sure you will hear it 
yourself. " Long afterwards that young man said: "That was a new 
revelation to me. I found that I had onl}^ been glad, not grateful. 
But I have been telling the Giver of all Good with grateful feelings 
ever since, to my soul's help and comfort. " 

This we are all to consider is the Lord's due. Who, without 
delay, will render it to him? 



102 The Story of Jonah. 

But another thing: in prayer is resignation. God answered 
Jonah, but answered strictly in his own time and way. This is the 
Father's constant, loving method. We are far too finite and short 
sighted to have our own way. Human wills should ever be subordi- 
nated to the divine will. '' We get our wishes when our wishes are 
molded by his word. " The highest reason persuades to this. '' Christ 
loves us a great deal too well to gi^ e our own foolish and selfish wills 
the key of his treasure house. " Therefore, leave the mode of answer 
entirely to the Hearer of Prayer. Faithfully study his word, and 
thankfully accept his good things, along the channel he is pleased to 
use in sending them. His way will always be better than ours. 

Early in tlie sixteenth century, a pious man in Germany mourns 
over the corruptions of the church, and most earnestly longs for a 
reformation. He prays fervently and often for the conversion of 
Maxamilian, the Emperor, that through him true religion may be 
revived. He feels his prayer is to be answered. It was answered, 
but how? One evening Martin Luther, who was then but a charity 
student, was out walking with a young friend, when a sudden flash 
of lightning kills the companion by his side. This so startled Luther 
that he resolved on the spot to devote liis whole life to service of Christ 
in the gospel ministry. 

Now notice, the substance of tlie good man's prayer was that 
Germany might be gospelized. But he was dictating the instrumen- 
talit}', for he asked tliat this be done through the Emperor. In infinite 
wisdom God chose his own instrumentality, and so qualified Martin 
Luther that he did more for the refomation of the church in Germany 
than many Maxamilians could have done had they been ever so thor- 
oughly converted. 

We do not know, nor can we always know, what are the best 
means for God to employ in accomplishing his good pleasure. But 
we do know something of the great ends he has to bring about, and 
that he will use the wisest means for their accomplishment. 

"In some way or other 

The Lord will provide. 
It may not be my waj^, 
It may not be thy way, 
And yet in his own way 

The Lord will provide." 



Scriptural. 103 

Being infinite in resources, the All Wise Hearer of Prayer has 
choice of many methods, and he has also his own reasons for preferring 
now one, then another. The kind of answer that will be granted 
earnest prayer is determined by sovereign wisdom and love. Miss 
Proctor has well written — 

Pray, though the gift you ask for 

May never comfort your fears, 
May never repay your pleading; 

Yet pray, and with hopeful tears. 
An answer — not that you sought for, 

But diviner— will come one day; 
Your eyes are too dim to see it, 

Yet strive and wait and pray. 

But a final lesson should not be forgotten. There is great benefit 
in going apart to commune with God, or in being forced to be alone 
with God as Jonah was. 

No great purpose was ever achieved by any individual until his 
spirit had first gone out into some solitude, — it may have been a wilder- 
ness one, — and there discovered its own weakness in itself, but its own 
untold strength when it relies upon no help but that of the Almighty. 
This is the experience of all the greatest among men and women. 
"They go apart from their fellows for a while, like Moses into the land 
of Midian, or like our Lord himself into a desert place, or like Paul 
into Arabia, and there, in solitary communion with God, they come 
to themselves. From that communion with God; from that highest 
of all companionships they drink in strength to fit them for the work 
of their lives." 

Let us be sure of it, alone with God we may get visions that will 
fill our souls, visions that will never fade afterwards, but will serve as 
beacon lights to guide us through storm and darkness, till the high 
purpose God has for us in life is finished. 

Alone with God, too, we need to go in time of temptation. Prayer 
is the quickest, safest, surest and best means of defense against the 
assault of the adversary. 

A prominent christian man said: "When I was a boy, I was 
much helped by Bishop Hamline, who visited at the house where I 
was. Taking me aside, he said: ' When in trouble, my lad, kneel 
down and ask God's help, bvit never climb over the fence into the 



104 The Story of Jonah. 

devil's ground, and then kneel do"RTi and ask help. Pray from God's 
side of the fence.' ''Of the Bishop's words," said the man, "I have 
thought every day of my life since, and often, by following them, in 
times of sudden temptation, I have been kept from getting over to 
the devil's side of the fence at all." 

How much better for ever}^ one if this same lesson was early learn- 
ed, and ever practiced. 

Alone with God! I love the place; 
There seek the guidance of his grace; 
In secret converse of the mind, 
Some sweet foretaste of Heaven I find. 

Shut in my closet, oft I meet 

My Lord, and hold communion sweet; 

There shed the penitential tear. 

His pard'ning voice enraptured hear. 

There all his promises I plead; 
Give all his invitations heed; 
Pay thanks with joy, inquire, believe; 
Abundant help from him receive. 

When earth's distractions are withdrawn; 
When noise and vanity are gone; 
Sweet peace ensues when tempest-driven, 
As God imparts a glimpse of heaven. 

So, where none else can see or hear; 
To him who bows his gracious ear, 
With loving trust I oft look up. 
And soon exult in blessed hope. 

How void and empty life would be, 
If, Lord, I could not talk to thee 
In secret chamber. Help me prize 
This boon till caught above the skies. 

Where I shall view thee on thy tlirone. 
See glad before thee all thine own 
Enrobed in white and wearing palms, 
While I, too, swell their lofty psalms. 



Delivered. 



Arid Jehovah spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon 
the dry land. — Jonah 2:10. 

They cry unto Jehovah in their trouble, 

And he bringeth them out of their distresses. 
He maketh the storm a calm, 

So that the waves thereof are still. 
Tlien are they glad because they are quiet; 

So he bringeth them unto their desired haven. 

— David. 
Never delay 
To do the duty which the hour brings, 
Whatever it be in great or smaller things; 

For who doth know 
What he shall do the coming day? 

— Goethe. 



XI. 

DELIVERED 

Jonah prayed in penitence, faith and expectation as confident as 
if already realized, and was soon released from his icthyic prison. He 
gave thanks, vowed vows, expressed his assurance of deliverance, 
"And Jehovah spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon 
dry land." 

It would seem that the fish disgorged him immediately after his 
prayer. But it had to be commanded to give him up. The irrational 
creatures have wills; often much more will than reason. They are 
betimes stubborn. But God controls them. He governs "all his 
creatures and all their actions." Wind and storm fulfill his word. 
So do "dragons and all deeps." 

We may not know how God does this. The Scriptures, however, 
often affirm the fact. He spake to this fish and it gave up its living 
treasure. God had commanded the prophet, and he disobeyed. In 
some way he now commanded the fish. He laid his will upon it, and 
it forthwith obeyed — a pattern to the prophet after his release. 

The fish was unwilling to give up the man it had swallowed. It 
had to be told to do it. Yea, had to be constrained to do it. God, in 
his own unspeakable way, must need control its will. And how com- 
plete and absolute his power over his creatures is clear from the lan- 
guage used. All he had to do vv'as to speak to it — simply give it a 
hint of his wish. Not that he used words, as he often condescends to 
do to his rational creatures. Not this are we to think; but that some- 
how, in his own ineffable way, he exerted upon it the law and com- 
mand of his will. That was the all-sufficient thing. For the divine 
will that any thing should be is both law and fulfillment. " He spake 
and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast. " Laying the power 
of his almighty will on the unwilling fish brings about the desire of his 
will forthwith. So in his works of providence he "governs all his 
creatures. " 

Jonah being delivered, the next thing the narrative tells us is 
that he was recalled. "The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the 
second time, saying: Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and 
preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. " 

Here, the thing that seems remarkable to us is, there is no up- 
braiding of the prophet in an}^ terms whatever. The Lord had rebuked 



108 The Story of Jonah. 

his wayward servant by the shipwreck, and by entombment in the 
fish, and let that suffice. In exalted dignity, and matchless patience, 
he now simply recalls him to the same duty he had before declined. 
As in later years Peter, after his base denial, so now Jonah is not only 
forgiven, but restored fo his office, and receives anew his commission. 
After his late perverse disobedience, it is very proper that he should 
be tested in this way. He now has opportunity to prove the sincerity 
of his repentance by performing the service which before he had shirked. 

The prophet might, indeed, have seemed to himself and to others 
unworthy to be again inspired of God. But "whom the Lord loveth, 
he chasteneth," and whom he chasteneth he loveth. The late shirk- 
ing runaway is now a changed man. Jehovah's all-perceiving eye 
sees it, and, by one of his most special favors, gives at once to him the 
very trust he had before deserted. 

The same trust, in substance, it was. At least, it is not softened 
any. If any thing, the message now is more rigid than before. The 
first command was: "Go to Nineveh," and reprove her for her sin. 
Now it is: "Go," and declare her overthrow. 

His instructions are positive. "Preach the preaching," or more 
exactly, "proclaim the proclamation that I bid thee." The Lord 
charged him to obey his command to the letter. He must not soften, 
explain away, or let down the meaning of the message. He must not 
consider his own reputation, or the ears of his hearers, or mingle 
soothing with severe words, or blunt the edge of his proclamation with 
ingenious phraseology. He is bound to declare openly just what was 
commanded him. He dare not cry, "peace, peace, when there is no 
peace. " Like Paul to the Ephesians, he must declare the whole 
counsel of God. He must declare the message God gives him to declare, 
and that only. 

So the conscientious, devoted minister of Christ always does. 
The real language of his heart, like that of the Apostle, is: "Woe is 
unto me if I preach not the gospel" He is set for the defense of the 
truth of God. That truth, whatever it may be, he is bound to pro- 
claim. He dare not depart from the truth; he dare not withhold the 
truth. Speak it out he must, — speak it in love, of course, and always, 
but speak it without changing its terms, "whether men will hear, or 
whether they will forbear," his instructions read. 

Jonah now, just after his severe lesson, knew this and obeyed. 
Responding to this second call, he fulfills his commission. Very differ- 
ent from his former conduct. Before, "he arose and fled." Now 
"he arose and went," as ready to obey, as once to disobey. 



Delivered. 109 

Note here that Jonah's obedient conduct exemplifies true conver- 
sion. A soul new-born shows the same energ}^ in serving God it before 
had sho"v^Ti in serving self, or the world. Saul, the ardent persecutor, 
became, after conversion, Paul all aflame in the service of the church 
and its Lord. Here is the way, let every one walk in it. The son in 
the parable, called by his father to work in his vineyard, was at first 
disobedient, but afterwards "repented and went," thus doing the 
will of his father, and becoming an example to us and to all. 

The will of our Heavenly Father is to be the rule of our conduct. 
When in mercy and love he speaks from heaven, "this is my beloved 
Son, hear ye him," we gain for ourselves infinite blessing by heartily 
heeding. Jonah was like the erstwhile disobedient son, only Jonah 
had to be brought to submission by severe discipline. But well for 
him, and for the Ninevites, that he became as willing as before he was 
unwilling. 

Worthy of remark at this point is his promptness. The command 
was, "Arise, go." At once, it would seem, he "arose and went." 
He made no dela}^, showed no hesitancy after he was called. 

It is true, an interval of some time may have elapsed between his 
deliverance by the fish and his commission. The word "arise" seems 
to intimate that he had settled down, and was staying quietly in one 
place. Some think that after his release from his strange prison, he 
had gone to Jerusalem to pay his vows, and that he was there when the 
voice of the Lord called him the second time. But it seems more 
natural to hold with others, that he had at once returned to his former 
home, Gath-hepher, and was there enjoying leisure, or engaged in 
some old time duties. He may have hoped that God would accept 
his late punishment and his repentance, and would not again call him 
to go to Nineveh. Any how, he seems to have been settled some- 
where, for the words, "Arise, go," would not have been spoken to one 
who was on his way. 

Then, too, it seems natural to infer an interval, for this would 
allow time for the tidings of so great a miracle to spread far and wide, — 
especially to reach Nineveh, and help prepare the minds of its people 
for the preaching of the one they knew to have been so marvellously 
delivered. 

But the narrative supplies us with none of these incidents. Jonah 
does not speak of himself, but only of his mission as God taught him. 
He simply tells of the second call which came to him, and of his very 
prompt obedience, which will claim attention in the next chapter, 
where we may view him brave and fearless, mightily under the inspir- 
ing power of the Spirit of God which now so fully controlled him. 



Preaching-. 



And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he 
cried and said: Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.— 
Jonah 3:4. 

Be strong! 
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift, 
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift. 
Shun not the struggle; face it. 'Tis God's gift. 

Be strong! 
It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong, 
How hard the battle goes, the day, how long. 
Faint not, fight on! Tomorrow comes the song. 

— Maltbie D. Babcock. 



XII. 

PREACHING 

From prayer to preaching is the approved order of service. This 
is the order heaven blesses. The closet before the pulpit, if the pulpit 
would have closets filled with suppliants. From your knees to the 
sanctuary, man of God, if you would get hearers on their knees 
before the Lord. One's own heart must first be right with heaven, 
or he will have but little power in persuading other hearts to the right 
way. 

Jonah, in penitence, prayed in faith and confident hope in God, 
and his preaching which soon followed resulted in immediate and 
amazing effects. A whole city — a city of hitherto heathen people, 
who possessed not a single copy of God's holy word, who never had 
heard the voice of one of the Lord's prophets, listened, awe struck, 
repented, fasted and called upon God with much outward manifesta- 
tion of a thorough change in heart and life. Jonah's preaching, used 
that day as the humble instrument, under God, of renovating a vast 
populace, may well enlist our thoughtful study. Where, and in what 
manner did he proclaim his message, and what was the substance of. 
the message proclaimed? 

The mind naturally inquires first about the place of his fulfilled 
mission. 

The name of the city, Nineveh, is often given. Nearly as often, 
too, is it described by the word "great. " This frequent re-mentioning 
of its magnitude was, doubtless, with a purpose. The word would 
suggest its size. It was at that time the largest city of the world. It 
may also have been repeatedly called great so as to prepare Jonah's 
mind for the colossal task before him, lest when he came face to face 
with it, he should be appalled and draw back. Or third, the term so 
often used may be an argument for God's compassion, as is evidently 
the case in chapter 4:11. 

The margin of our Bibles gives the true reading — " great to God. '^ 
The habit of the Hebrew mind was devout. It was accustomed to 
recognize God in every thing; especially in whatever was greatest and 
best on earth. Vievvdng something great or grand, sometimes the pious, 
mind would attribute its existence, or its magnificence to Jehovah's: 
creative and formative power. Hence we have such expressions as 
"the mountains of God," "cedars of God," "trees of the Lord which 



114 The Story of Jonah. 

he hath planted," and so forth. That is, he is the Author, Upholder 
and Beautifier of them. 

In other places in the Bible, the use of the terms, denoting superior 
excellence or greatness, clearly suggests to the mind that the object 
to which they are applied will bear the scrutiny of God himself — ^mean- 
ing that HE considers them what the wTiter affirms them to be. In 
Genesis 10:9 is a case of this kind. Nimrod is called "a mighty hunter 
before the Lord." Also in Acts 7:20, margin, it is affirmed of Moses, 
he was "fair to God," that is, fair in God's estimation. In this way, 
too, understanding the strong adjective applied to this capital city 
of Assyria, especially in chapter 4:11, we may paraphrase, "Nineveh 
was a city, great, not only to man's thinking, but to God's." 

But what is known about Nineveh's greatness? The third chapter 
says, it "was an exceeding great cit}'- of three day's journey." By 
this we are, doubtless, to understand it was so great in circuit it would 
take three days, walking at the usual rate of twenty miles a day, to 
pass around it. This is the most probable, and the most generally 
received opinion, both of Bible scholars, historians and travellers. 

We are told, too, that it was in the shape of a parallelogram, having 
its main houses and inhabitants, like separate cities, at its four corners; 
with villas and villages between, and also with large parks, and, be- 
sides these, land under tillage within its circuit. Moreover, "that its 
walls were a hundred feet high, and broad enough to allow three 
chariots abreast, and, besides, were fortified and variegated with 
fifteen-hundred towers, each two hundred feet high." These dimen- 
sions are confirmed by heathen historians, many of them by actual, 
modern measurements. 

The city had many inhabitants. The fourth chapter and eleventh 
verse of the book mentions its little children as numbering one hun- 
dred and twenty thousand, which authorizes the estimation of the 
population at some where from six hundred thousand to one million. 
For those days it was a great city, truly. 

But the subject matter of Jonah's preaching ought to be specially 
conidered. We are told that he "began to enter into the city a day's 
journey, and he cried, and said: Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall 
be overthrown. " The text seems clearly to imply that he uttered 
just this one cry. But it may well be thought that he repeated it 
over and over as he progressed through the city, or zigzagged its 
thoroughfares. 

Imagination may picture this stranger, "an unknown Hebrew, 



Preaching. 115 

in a prophet's austere garb, passing through the splendid streets, of 
the proudest town of the eastern world," and wherever a crowd would 
gather, pausing a moment in his walk, and repeating his doleful cry- 
in their ears. Or, we may think of him as he advanced, turning his 
face this way and then that way, time after time proclaiming his 
message. 

By the word " cried" we are to understand that he made proclama- 
tion, in loud and deliberate tones, as the forerunner of a king was 
accustomed to do. 

To an oriental mind, this oft repeated announcement might be 
more startling than a labored address. The very solitariness of the 
one message would inspire the more awe. So it came about that 
Jonah's single sentence, uttered in his solemn, ringing voice, a whole 
day, produced a most marked immediate impression. In Noah's 
time, one hundred and twentj'- years of warning were given to men. 
Yet they repented not till the flood came, and it was too late. But 
in the case of Nineveh, God granted a double mercy — ^first, that its 
people should repent right away after the threatening, and second, 
that pardon should at once follow their repentance. 

It is surely remarkable that one day's preaching was enough. 
The whole thing was certainly of God. He had many wonderfully 
wise and blessed purposes in mind, in bringing about so soon such a 
striking reformation, among such a people, by such means. 

The Almighty never lacks for expedients. Neither is he limited 
either in power or in mercy. 

But the inquiry arises: did Jonah pass entirely through the city 
in one day? Some think he did. The distance was only eighteen or 
twenty miles. Moreover, in approaching Nineveh from Palestine, he 
would enter the city on its west side. And as chapter 4:3 shows him 
on the east side of the cit}'- just afterwards, they suppose that he 
traversed a main street from side to side of the city while he uttered 
his " one deep, brief cry of woe. " Many, however, claim the more 
natural thought to be, that the now bold prophet perambulated the 
city, going hither and thither, as far as was possible in one day. 

Either view may strengthen our thought of the great impressibil- 
ity of the Ninevites, and their readiness to believe and repent; which 
idea, the inspired penman evidently designed to convey. And we 
surely get a most vivid conception of how easily these people were 
now moved, and how ripe they were for repentance, by supposing 
'' that while the preacher himself was seen and heard in only a portion 



116 The Story of Jonah. 

of the vast city, his message was taken up and repeated, and sped, and 
bore fruit rapidly in every direction, tiU tidings of what was happen- 
ing came to the king himself," who, deeply affected thereby, hastily 
issued the edict which summoned all the people to marked humiliation 
before God. 

The moral grandeur of this whole scene can never be adequately 
pictured. Simple and brief is the description in the verse. "And 
Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried and 
said. Yet forty days and Nineveh overthrown. " The mind's eye sees 
the promptitude of the prophet's action. He entered upon his difficult 
and dangerous task without delay, or hesitation, or inquiry, just as 
soon as he reached the city, it would seem. 

His boldness, too, begets admiration. He stands in the "great 
city" alone, a stranger, an unknown Hebrew, a representative of a 
religion despised by the people who hear him. He has no credentials 
from his own king according him to them, and no permit from their 
king to preach in their city. He has near him no companion, acquaint- 
ance, committees, or body guard of police or soldiers. He enters no 
synagogue, sanctuary, or cathedral; has no Bible, hymn book, organ, 
or choir, and no singing. He offers no audible prayer in reverent 
tones, while worshippers around him bow their heads. In his preach- 
ing he does not present the only Savior; does not even cry, repent; nor 
does he hold out any promise whatever, so far as his exact words are 
given us. He simply threatens doom. With loud, bold, commanding 
tones, he exclaims: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh overthrown." 
And this he did for a whole day, did it to gazing, startled hearers, 
not changing his words, nor softening their import. Surely, he was as 
one bearding the lion in his den. Or as Nahum 2:11 words it: like 
one adventuring himself into — 

"The dwelling place of the lions. 
And the feeding place of the young lions. 
Where the lion, even the old lion, walked, 
And the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid. " 

No, Jonah, in his bold venture, was not harmed. No body answer- 
ed back. No one opposed, contradicted, objected, or interrupted. 
No officer of the law interferred. No mob assaulted him. The 
crowds gazed , we may suppose, and were awe struck at once. All 
through the city, of each one of untold thousands were Nahum's 
other words literally true: 



Preaching. 117 

" The heart melteth, 
The knees smite together, 
And the faces of them all gather blackness. " 

O, magnify the Lord, and stand in awe of him. He who searcheth 
the heart, and trieth the reins of the children of men; who sent the 
storm to overwhelm Jonah, and the fish to save him, also sent fear 
and awe and trembling and deep contrition into vast multitudes of 
Assyrian souls that day. Exalted praises be to his name. 



Effects 



So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, 
and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even unto the least 
of them. — Jonah 3:5. 

This is ever God's manner, when men change their deeds, to 
change his doom; when they renounce their sins, to recall his sentence; 
when they repent of the evil they have done against him, to repent 

of the evil he had said he would do against them Never 

was a man truly and inwardly humbled, but God, in the riches of his 
special mercy in Christ, truly pardoned him. — Bishop Sanderson. 



XIII. 

EFFECTS 

Jonah's preaching bore fruit at once. Before his first day's labors 
closed, multitudes were prostrate in prayer. The change in them was 
remarkable. The chapter tells us they believed in God, they repented, 
and they obtained respite from the threatened doom. 

They believed in God. This included tliree things. First, they 
believed in the God of the Hebrews as the true God. Second, they 
believed in the power of this one supreme God to carry out the threat 
which he had made through the prophet. Third, they believed in his 
mercy and willingness to pardon the penitent. All this was marvellous 
faith in heathen. It contrasted most favorably with that of the Lord's 
people. " So great faith had not been found, no not in Israel. " 

Using various considerations, the Holy Spirit wrought this scrip- 
tural belief in their hearts. The true reading in the verse is : " They 
believed in God." This is more than the idea in our king James' 
translation — " they believed God. " To believe God, is to believe what 
God says is true. To believe in, or on, God expresses more. It 
declares belief as resting in God, — trusting itself and all its concerns 
to him. It combines hope and trust with faith and love too, since, 
without love there cannot be trust. They believed in God as the God 
over all; believed in his power; cast themselves on his mercy; entrusted 
themselves entirely to his goodness and love; whilst they felt the deepest 
awe and reverence for his character. 

But they did not stop with mere faith. Along with this they also 
repented. This proved that their faith was genuine. True belief 
and true repentance go together. They are never separated in the 
heart of any one who is truly saved. So was it in this case. Right 
at once, along with the faith these Ninevites exercised, true penitence 
was shown by their conduct. They "proclaimed a fast, and put on 
sackcloth." Not a few of them, merely, did this, but the mass of the 
people, "from the greatest of them even to the least of them," did it. 

We seem to be clearly authorized from the narrative to under- 
stand that the people believed and repented as fast as they heard 
Jonah's message. One did not wait for another. By common con- 
sent they fasted and humbled themselves. They waited not for the 
supreme authority. Time was urgent, and they would lose none of it. 
In this imminent peril of God's displeasure, they acted as men at a fire, 



122 The Story of Jonah. 

who do not wait for orders to put it out, if they can, or to keep it from 
spreading. No time for red tape then. Prompt and vigorous action 
is the thing called for. So now the people seem to have been moved 
EN MASSE, and at once. One did not dally for another. Out of the 
one common terror, there arose one common cry: 'a, fast, a fast, let 
us humble ourselves before THE God.' 

In a city so large, and with forms so complex and dilly-dallying 
as those required in approaching Eastern monarchs, it would take time 
to reach the king, and get a,n edict from him. So, the exigency being 
imminent, the people did in advance, what they deeply felt was proper, 
and what they strongl}^ believed the king would order, if he knew and 
felt the emergency as they did. With one consent " they proclaimed 
a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their great even to their little.'* 
This was the earliest effect of Jonah's preaching, — it moved the people 
greatly. 

But the influence widened. The tide of penitence and humiliation 
rose higher and higher till it reached and included the king and his 
nobles. " Word came unto the King," we are told. Here read " and" 
instead of ''for". "And the matter came unto the king." That is, 
in addition to the people's knowledge and actions, the whole account 
came, before long, to the ears of the chief ruler of the city. He heard 
how this stranger, in odd attire had come; what had befallen him before 
he came; how he preached; how the people already believed him; as 
well as what they had done and were doing. At last he heard it all, 
and soon, in his own person, was as penitent as the lowliest of his 
subjects. In the common peril he believed as they did, and humbled 
himself with them. 

How vivid is the description of the influence upon the king, and 
his resultant actions. Print and ponder clause of the narrative under 
clause, thus: 

" He arose from his throne, 
Laid his robe from him. 
Covered him with sackcloth, 
Sat in ashes, 

And caused it to be proclaimed 
And published through Nineveh, 
By the decree of the king and his nobles. 
Saying: 



Effects. 123 

Let neither man nor beast, 

Herd nor flock, 

Taste any thing. 

Let them not feed 

Nor drink water, 

But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, 

And cry mightily unto God; 

Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, 

And from the violence that is in his hands." 

All these things are signs of repentance. See how many there 
are, and how striking and suggestive of deep contrition. 

The king "arose" from his throne. The word denotes both deep 
feeling and prompt action. He lost no time. He heard, and left 
his throne at once. 

" And he put off his robe. " The throne, or great chair of AssjTian 
kings, was an elaborate thing. It was supported by animals and human 
figures. The description of it reminds one of what I Kings 10:20 
says of the throne of Solomon, v/hich "had six steps, and had stays 
(or arms) on either side on the place of the seat, and two lions stood 
by the stays. And twelve lions stood there, on the one side and on 
the other, upon the six steps. " 

Such a throne as that the king now left to sit in a heap of ashes. 
But not with his royal apparel on. He laid that aside. Layard says, 
his dress " consisted of a long flowing garment, edged with fringes and 
tassels, descending to his ankles, and confined at the waist b}^ a girdle. 
Over this robe a second, similarly ornamented, and open in front, 
appears to have been tlirown. From his shoulders fell a cope, or hood, 
also adorned with tassels; and to it were attached two long ribbons, 
or lappets. He wore a conical mitre, or tiara, which distinguishes 
the monarchs in AssjTian bas-reliefs, and seems to have been reserved 
for him alone. Around the neck of the king was a necklace. He wore 
ear-rings. And his arms, which were bare from a little above the 
elbow, were encircled by armlets and bracelets remarkable for the 
beauty of their forms. The clasps were formed by the heads of animals, 
and the center by stars and rosettes, probably inlaid with precious 
stones. " 

What a wonderful contrast between this magnificent dress and the 
wrapping of sackcloth he put about him! What a contrast between 
his throne and the ash pile in which he now sat. Could tokens of 
humiliation be any more marked? 



124 The Story of Jonah. 

Sackcloth was the coarse, rough hair cloth which was worn as an 
outward token of the deepest inner penitence and humiliation. The 
king, — the late proud and gorgeously arrayed monarch, — did not hesi- 
tate to put on such a garb. He must have been very deeply moved, 
indeed. Many of the people had listened to Jonah's warning voice, 
and noted his solemn manner. The king did not hear the preacher 
at all. Only the report of his warning cr}'-, and of his immediate past 
experience, had come to his ears. But this thoroughly changes his 
heart, and his dress and posture as a visible sign of it. He humbles 
himself with the very lowliest of his subjects. 

Nor did he stop there, but used his ro3'^al authority over others. 
He issued an earnest edict calling all the people to immediate fasting, 
humiliation and prayer. And to add weight to his call, he had his 
nobles join him in it. 

Seventy-nine years later Darius associated his princes with him- 
self in his decree consigning Daniel to the lion's den. That was the 
law among the Babylonian kings. The princes took part in the gov- 
ernment. 

But not so with the earlier Assyrian kings. Each ruler was an 
absolute monarch. His own will was law. Ordinarily his nobles were 
mere figure heads. But novv% deeply humbled as he was, he "brings 
forth fruits meet for repentance," by associating his grandees, or 
great men, with himself in this decree so hurriedly and widely issued 
and published. 

What a blessing it is wlien rulers are religious! What a blessing 
when they fear God and obey him, setting the people an example of 
piety and humility, and when, in a loving, wise and proper wa}^ they 
use their authority in trying to guide the people in the paths of righte- 
ousness. Blessed is that people who " are in such a case. " 

But notice this Nineveh king's proclamation. It showed him to 
be deeply exercised. It was earnest, wide, even all inclusive. He 
gave charge that neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, should taste 
any thing — should not feed or drink water; moreover, that both 
should be covered with sackcloth, and that the people, in penitence, 
should cry mightily to God, and turn from all evil and sin. So ran 
the decree. 

The oriental character has always been demonstrative. It in- 
dulges much in signs and s}Tnbols. The Bible is full of instances. 
So none need wonder that dumb animals were included with man in 
this call of Nineveh's king to fasting and humiliation. The common 



Effects. 125 

instinct and practice of mankind has always been in this direction. 
When the Persian general, Masistias, was slain, the horses and mules 
of the Persians were shorn as well as themselves. Self-humiliation 
would have every thing reflect its own lowliness. The Bible teaches 
us that the brute creatures share in the evil effects of man's sin. " The 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." 
And in this Nineveh case, the dumb animals were made to share in 
man's outward signs of sorrow. This was according tQ.Eastern custom, f 

Nor has a like prompting of heart departed from people in chris- 
tian lands. In some places it is not uncommon now at the funerals 
of the rich, to choose black horses and cover them with black velvet. 
And how almost universal it is to show signs of mourning in our dress, 
our food, our houses, our equipage, and whatever else belongs to us. 

The lo wings and meanings of the hungry sheep and oxen, and the 
sackcloth-clad horses and mules on Nineveh's streets, may have incited 
the now really humbled inhabitants still more powerfully to repentance. 
There may, too, have been, in some measure, the feeling, which we 
now know to be scriptural, that the dumb brutes belong to God; that 
he cares for them, and will hear their cry. At any rate, beast as well 
as man was included in the king's call to universal fasting, and to the 
use of signs to indicate their humiliation. He and they wished all 
they owned to help show how fully and truly they repented. 

Too often is it forgotten that our dumb creatures are to be used 
in God's service. But if we honor the Lord with all our substance, 
as required, we will show it by the way we use our live stock. We own 
them; God owns us. Therefore he owns them along with us, and 
expects us to see to it that they are used in ways that he approves, 
and that will go to e\ance that it is our purpose to honor him with all 
we have, as well as with all we are. 

But another sign of the true penitence of these Ninevites was 
prayer. They were charged by the king to cry mightily to God. 
There was to be no mild pleading. " Faint prayer does not express 
strong desire." Nor does a half heart get what it asks for, because 
it does not "pour out" the soul unto God in earnest yearning. There 
is scriptural authority for saying that effectual, fervent prayer avails 
much. The mighty cry of these Ninevites at this time proved this 
Bible promise. Moreover, besides being a sign of penitence, their 
prayer was heard. 

But added to the evidences of humiliation and prayer, their 
genuine repentance was also shown by their turning from sin. In 



126 The Story of Jonah. 

fact this was the best sign of all. This was the very substance, the 
heart, the core of their repentance. Prayer without reformation is 
a mockery of God. Merely having a sense of sin, and hoping for mercy 
from God, while the sin is still cherished and held on to, is not repent- 
ance. This never gains pardon, acceptance, justification and salva- 
tion. These Ninevites not only humbled themselves, and cried mightily 
to the Lord, but they also turned every one from the evil of his way, 
forsook violence and put his hope in God. 

It is so vv'ith people now. There must be an abhorrence of sin, 
a real forsaking of it, and accepting of God in its stead. There must 
be a struggling against sin, and a glad taking of Christ into the heart 
where sin once reigned. Then, and only then, can the soul read its 
"title clear to mansions in the skies." True "repentance is a saving 
grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and appre- 
hension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of 
his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor 
after, new obedience." 

But a third thing to note about the people of Nineveh in that 
emergency is that they obtained a respite from the threatened over- 
throw. "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil 
way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would 
do unto them, and he did it not." He extended pardon. He did not 
overthrow the city then, as threatened, because his warning l^.ad its 
intended effect. It was his secret purpose to show his readiness to 
forgive, and to glorify his mercy; also, to shame the impenitence of 
Israel, and, at the same time, give an earnest of the future conversion 
of the Gentiles. This was something of God's lofty and loving design. 

But inquire, what was the bottom thing that called for the divine 
mercy now? 

Just the same as that which always gains heaven's favor. It was 
not the fasting alone, or the sackcloth alone, or the moruning, or the 
sitting so humbly in ashes, nor all of these combined. No, not these, 
but the really changed life of penitents. God looked at the heart. 
He "saw their works." What works? That they fasted? That 
they put on sackcloth? He passes by these and says, "That every 
one turned from his evil way." That is why God "repented of the 
evil that he said he would do unto them." That is why the people 
were plucked from their peril. Their genuinely changed life made 
God propitious to them. Their fasting was all right as a sign of true 
repentance. But the core of their penitence did not consist in abstain- 



Effects. 127 

ing from food, but in the avoidance of sin. So the}' obtained mercy 
from the Lord. Whoever would sincerel}^ and truly fast, must show 
it by hating sin, by turning from it unto God, and by really and truly 
showing new obedience — that is, an obedience prompted b}^ a new 
motive of heart — love to God. The heart right before the Lord gains 
his favor. 

But when the verse says "God repented," what are we to under- 
stand by the word? Just the same we are to understand in many 
other places in the Bible where the same term is used. The thought 
of repentance seems strange to us when applied to the divine charac- 
ter, for we are told often that God changes not. Right reason also 
proves that if he be God, then he must be unchangeable. So, many 
good people have often been perplexed over the terms — " God repented. ' 

Thoughtfully pondering, however, may not the following con- 
siderations be helpful? 

First, the language is used in accommodation to human concep- 
tions and modes of speech. When man truly repents, he changes his 
conduct. A change of action denotes a change of mind. So, when 
God, to our view, seems to change his course of procedure, and is 
said to repent, this is but using terms to suit finite ideas. 

Again, we cannot look on the human and the divine side at the 
same time. Could we take our place beside God, and see as he sees, 
then we would know that "he is not man that he should lie, neither 
the son of man that he should repent. " Then we would be positively 
sure that "known unto him are all his works from the beginning of the 
world," and that with him "is no variableness, neither shadow of 
turning." But having our standpoint, not with God, but as yet with 
man, who, as long as he is in the body, has only partial vision and 
knowledge, the language suited to our as yet inadequate conceptions 
is: "It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and 
it grieved him at his heart." "God repented of the evil that he had 
said that he would do unto them. " 

The one set of scriptures speak of God from the divine side; the 
other set from the human side. Properly it may be affirmed, both 
views of the divine character are true. Moreover, they are in perfect 
liarmony with each other; though the Scriptures never attempt to 
harmonize them, nor is it wise for us to attempt to do so. We cannot 
look upon both sides of the shield at once. 

The problem may also be presented a third way. God is infinitely 
just. He is also infinitely merciful. Whenever men sin his justice 



128 The Story of Jonah. 

arouses, and, sooner or later, its stroke must fall. Whenever men 
repent, his merc}^ immediately goes forth towards them. This must 
be so, whether we understand it or not, or else God would not be God, 
justice and mercy would never kiss each other in Christ, and we could 
have no hope. 

Now, vAien the divine message was sent through the Lord's ser- 
vant to the Ninevites, "they were so ripe for judgment, that a pur- 
pose of destruction to take effect in forty days was the only word God's 
righteous abhorance of sin admitted of as to them. But when they 
repented, the posture in which they stood towards God's righteousness 
was altered. So God's mode of dealing with them must alter accord- 
ingly, if God is not to be inconsistent with his own immutable charac- 
ter of dealing with men according to their works and state of heart, 
taking vengeance at last on the hardened impenitent, and delighting 
to show mercy to the penitent." 

So the Scriptures unmistakably teach. Read it in Ezekiel — 
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die. * * * * g^t if the wicked 
will turn from all his sins * * * he shall surely live; he shall not 
die. * * * * Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should 
die? saith the Lord God, and not that he should turn from his ways 
and live. " 

God's method of procedure in carrying out his justice and his 
mercy are the opposite of each other. But in changing from the exer- 
cise of the one to the exercise of the other, there is no change whatever 
in his cliaracter. The Divine Being, in his essential righteousness 
and merc}^, never changes. The one goes forth when there is call for 
it, and so the other. This is his unchanging character. 

In the case of these Ninevites, " what was really a change in 
THEM, and in God's corresponding dealings, is, in mere condescention 
to human conception, spoken of as a change in God. " The announce- 
ment of destruction to Nineveh was a truthful representation of God's 
purpose towards the city in its existing state, and also of what was 
actually due the unrepentant people. When that state ceased, how- 
ever, then a new relation of Nineveh to God, not contemplated in the 
message, came in; then a path for the divine mercy is made, and that 
mercy goes forth. There was no change in the divine character, no 
change in the divine mind and purpose, which, from all eternity, was 
and is to punish sin and pardon penitence. 

O, praise the Lord for his merc}^ and his truth, his justice and his 
love. ' 



Effects. 129 

"How wondrous are our Father's ways, 
How firm his truth, how large his grace; 
He takes his mercy for his throne, 
And thence he makes his glories known. 

Yea, his eternal love is sure 
To all the saints, and shall endure; 
From age to age his truth shall reign. 
Nor children's children hope in vain. " 

Passing by other practical lessons suggested by Nineveh's repent- 
ance, take in mind these tY\'o. First, how inexcusable are nominal 
believers in christian lands. These Ninevites were idolators. They 
had no express revelation of mercy, and no special instruction in the 
truths and the will of God. Yet, under one brief sermon of a foreign 
preacher, a stranger, and upon a mere peradventure of respite from 
overthrow, they became earnest, fervent, prompt, self-denying and 
hum^ble in seeking mercy. 

How superior this to the course of many who are much more 
highly favored. All their lives, multitudes, all over our land and 
others, have had repeated warnings, instructions, invitations and 
promises of scripture, yet have thoughtlessly, or wilfully, persisted 
in unbelief, impenitence, self-indulgence and procrastination, to the 
dishonor of God and to the hurt of their own souls. O how important 
to rem^ember : " To whom much is given, of him will much be required. ' 
The repentant Ninevites are a reproof to all the impenitent in christian 
lands. 

Second, Let every one sincerely seeking to the Lord have hope. 
Nineveh was in the very jaws of destruction. The mass of the people 
may have been only transiently impressed and partially reformed. 
Yet, God readily hearkened to their cry, and spared them on the very 
first dawn of repentance. What a blessed encouragement this is to 
every broken hearted penitent, and believing suppliant nov/. Oh, 
who will not at once avail himself of God's mercy, by humiliation, 
prayer and the forsaking of sin. Just as the people of Nineveh did? 
The way is exactly the same for us now it was for them then. Rev. 
A. E. Evans has given us words very suitable for a penitent and belie v~ 
ing approach to the mercy seat. Use them. 



130 The Story of Jonah. 

Lord, to Thee alone we turn, 

To thy cross for safety fly; 

There, as penitents, to learn 
How to live and how to die. 

Sinful, on our knees we fall; 

Hear us, as for help we plead; 
♦ Hear us when on thee we call; 

Aid us in our time of need. — ^Amen 



Why Effective? 



Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from 
his fierce anger, that w^e perish not. — Jonah 3:9. 

I stood outside the gate, 

A poor waj-iaring child; 
Within my breast there beat 

A tempest loud and wild. 
A fear oppressed my soul 

That I might be too late; 
And Oh! I trembled sore, 

And prayed outside the gate. 

"Mercy! " I loudly cried, 

"Oh! give me rest from sin." 
"I will," a voice replied; 

And Mercy let me in. 
She bound my bleeding wounds; 

She soothed my aching head; 
She eased my burdened soul. 

And bore the load instead. 

— Josephine Pollard. 



XIV. 

WHY EFFECTIVE? 

The sudden conversion of these Ninevites was, indisputably, a 
most remarkable thing. It was this for two reasons. 

First, from the make-up and character of the people themselves. 
With scarce an exception, they were rooted and grounded in long 
cherished prejudice. Throughout their whole national life they had 
been idolators, as had been their ancestors before them. They be- 
lieved in " Lords many and Gods many. " Both Assyrian monuments 
and records disclose a " vast pantheon, which was the boast of king and 
people alike." Their minds saw in this great host, first, Asshur, the 
great lord ruling supreme over all the gods, and next, "his twelve 
greater, and four-thousand inferior, deities, presiding over all the 
manifestations of nature and all complications of human life." At all 
times they felt their strength and their hope to lie in the multitude 
of their gods. 

Filled with this idea, they considered any nation feeble and de- 
fenceless indeed, which possessed only one divinity as its protector. 
Sennacherib, at tlie head of the Assyrian army, before Jerusalem, 
through one of his chief officers sent as a committee, taunted Hezekiah, 
the Hebrew king, with his useless reliance on his single national God — 
Javeh — of whose nature this proud general had so reprehensibly inade- 
quate an idea as to place him on the same level of power with the gods 
of Hamath, and Arpad, or any other Assyrian idol. 

Thus the people had been indoctrinated for long generations. 
No evangelical instruction had ever been imparted to them. Patriarch 
or prophet had never taught them the right way. How wondrous, 
then, it is that now, so suddenly, both ruler and people should accept 
and acknowledge Jehovah, the God of the Jews, as the God. The 
king, in his proclamation, cries out: ''Who can tell if God will turn 
and repent?" He uses the term Jehovah — ^meaning the One Supreme 
God over all, — ^the only blessed divine Ruler of the Jewish nation, 
who had ever been their stay and their defense. 

Thus the king exhorts. And the people humble themselves 
before Jehovah, and cry mightily for his mercy. All this is the more 
remarkable because it is contrary to all else we know of this idolatrous 
nation. 

Remarkable, too, was that revival in Nineveh from the standpoint 



134 The Story of Jonah. 

of Jonah's part in it. He was a plain garbed stranger. So far as we 
know, he repeated but a single sentence, and that only for one day. 
He produced no credentials of his office. On the night of Belshazzar's 
feast, a mysterious hand was suddenly seen writing on the wall, the 
startling words: "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. " At Pentecost the 
disciples spake in varied languages, and ''cloven tongues, like as of 
fire" appeared and "sat upon each of them." So there was a high 
reason for the conviction of multitudes on each occasion. 

But Jonah came without display of authority or power. He 
wrought no miracle to enforce his prediction. So far as we are told, 
he did not even call to repentance. Nor did he promise mercy if 
repentance were shown. Yet we read that the people — all of them — 
believed in God, fasted in deepest humiliation, and fled their sins; even 
associated the dumb animals with themselves in the garb of mourning. 

Truly, this is all very wonderful, both from the standpoint of the 
people's unpreparedness, and of Jonah's meager means used. Usually 
such an advance point in experience is only reached after instruction 
has been given carefully and repeatedly — ''line upon line, precept upon 
precept" — for months and even years. Evangelism must be both 
patient and perservering, — must give "here a little, there a little," 
wait, often for a long time, and then go over the same ground again 
and again, and keep on with the continual dropping of the truth until 
impressions are made. Thus only, under the blessing of God, do mis- 
sionaries commonly gain converts among the heathen. 

Why, then, were such a people as these Ninevites, who were so 
uninstructed evangelically, so greatly exercised in such a way so soon? 
How came it about? What stirred their hearts so deeply? 

Replying, it would be easy to say, God was pleased, in the almighti- 
ness of his working, to bring them all at once, under most powerful 
conviction. This is doubtless true. But in begetting real religious 
concern, our Heavenly Father is usually pleased to use a variety of 
means, — often to use them for a long time. Of course, he has power 
to convince of sin, and draw hearts to himself directly; but his common 
method, as learned from almost universal experience of christian 
workers every where is, to do this by the means of considerations of 
one kind and another, which are impressed upon the mind leading 
it to thoughtfulness and turning. 

Inquire, then, what were some of the things which the Hol}^ Spirit 
was now pleased to employ to so deeply impress the minds and hearts 
of the king and people in Nineveh under Jonah's "one deep cry of 
woe. " 



Why Effective? 135 

One thing; they doubtless knew of, and recalled, the wonderful / 
judgments that, on more than one occasion, Israel's God had inflicted * 
on his enemies. They had heard how Sodom and Gomorrah were, 
long before, burned with fire and brimstone; how plague after plague . 
had been sent on the Egyptians, and afterwards their army drowned , 
in the Red Sea; how miraculously, and at last suddenly, Jericho had 
been overthrown; how, thrice in succession, fire came down from 
heaven, and consumed the alternate companies of fifty each sent out 
by Ahaziah to arrest, and bring in Elijah. Recalling, perhaps, all 
these and other ''mighty acts," the Holy Spirit so deeply impressed 
their hearts that they feared before the Lord, showed him reverence, 
and forsook sin for his service. 

But another thing: there is e\ddence that they felt the greatness 
of their guilt. The fact of their fasting, and especially of their putting 
on sackcloth and sitting in ashes, shows this. Their sin pressed 
heavily upon them. Moreover, the king, in a solemn decree, most 
earnestly calls every one to turn from his evil way, and from all vio- 
lence, oppression and injustice. The next verse, too, says : "' God 
saw their works that they turned from their evil way. " This is a part 
of true repentance and sorrow of heart. One must feel the guilt of 
sin, and the badness of it, or he will not forsake it. The turning of 
these Ass3'rians proves they were under true and deep con\'iction. 
They strongly felt they were very guilty before God, and feared his 
judgments. So they repented and turned to him. 

And still more than this. They cherished a faint hope of divine 
clemency. " Who can tell if God v/ill turn and repent, and turn away 
from his fierce anger, that we perish not?" cried the king in his author- 
itative decree and proclamation. And all the people gave heed. 
Jonah had not expressly called them to repentance. Nor had his 
message promised mercy. Yet, having some apprehension of the 
goodness of the Lord, they acted on the general encouragement of an 
*'if, perchance." Their feeling was, 'we cannot tell but God m^ay be 
persuaded to remit our punisliment. Perhaps, his proper, righteous 
anger may be appeased by our submissions, humiliations and supplica 
tions. At least this is the most probable way of escaping the impending 
destruction.' Their general notion, however vague, of the Supreme 
Being's inherent mercy, begat a measure of hope in their breasts. 
And that hope ma}^ have been strengthened by the thought that, 
instead of destroying them at once, Jehovah had sent a messenger to 
warn them. On this slight token of favor their faith rested, and so 



136 The Story of Jonah. 

they fondly cherished hope of the possibility of pardon. The Holy 
Spirit had begotten that hope in their hearts, and then used it to work 
in them true repentance, and to lead them to outwardl}'' show the 
marked signs of it. 

But note also, fourth, the long standing, inwrought superstitious 
belief of the people. The Holy Spirit was pleased to powerfully use 
this fact in their moral make-up to accomplish his present purpose 
with whelming suddenness. 

And what was this superstitious belief? 

In his choicely worded and scholarly pamplilet, Dr. Trumbull* 
well sets it forth, as follows: "Prominent among the divinities of 
ancient Assyria, as shown by the monuments, was Dagan, a creature 
part man and part fish. The divinity was in some instances repre- 
sented as an upright figure, with the head of a fish above the head 
of a man, the open mouth of the fish forming a miter as the man's 
sacred head-dress, and the feet of the man extending below the tail 
of the fish. In other cases, the bod}^ of a man was at right angles to 
the conjoined body of a fish. Images of this fish-god have been found 
guarding the entrance to palace and temple in the ruins of Nineveh, 
and they appear upon ancient Bab3donian seals in a variety of forms. 
The name Dagan is found in the cuneiform inscriptions at an early 
date, as shown in Layard's 'Nineveh and its Remains,' and in Tiele's 

W01*K 5f* 't^ -t^ -t^ H^ 5f; 

" Now that this fish-god Dagan was an object of worship in early 
Babylon and Assyria is clear from the monuments. Berosus, a Baby- 
lonian historian, writing in the fourth century before our era, records 
the early traditions concerning the origin of this worship. According 
to the various fragments of Berosus, preserved in later historical 
writers, the very beginning of civilization in Clialdea and Babjlonia 
was under the direction of a personage, part man and part fish, who 
came up out of the sea. According to the account of this tradition, 
given from Berosus by Apollodorus, 'the whole body of the animal 
was like that of a fish; and had under a fish's head another head, and 
also feet below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail.* 

"His voice, too, and language, were articulate and human; and 
a representation of him is preserved even to this day. This being 
used to converse with men in the day time, but took no food at that 
season; and he gave them an insight into letters, and sciences, and 

♦"Light on the Story of Jonah," by Rev. H. Clay Trumbull, D. D., published 
by J. D. Wattles & Co., Philadelphia. 



DAGAN, AS SHOWN ON ORENTAL 
MONUMENTS. 









1. Babylonian gems. 2. Assyrian cylinder, 

3. Sculpture at Khorsabad. 4. Sculpture at Nimroud. 

5. Babylonian cylinder. 



138 The Story of Jonah. 

every kind of art. He taught them to construct houses, to found 
temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of 
geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the 
earth, and showed them how to collect fruits. 

' In short, he instructed them in every thing which could tend to 
soften manners and humanize mankind. From that time, so uni- 
versal v/ere his instructions, nothing material has been added by way 
of improvement. When the sun set, it was the custom of this being 
to plunge again into the sea, and abide all night in the deep; for he was 
amphibious. ' 

" Berous also records that, from time to time, ages apart, other 
beings, of like nature with this first great teacher, came up out of the 
sea with fresh instructions for mankind; and that each one of these 
avatars, or incarnations, marked a new epoch, and the supernatural 
messenger bore a new name. So it would seem to be clear that, in all 
those days of Israel's history within which the book of Jonah can fairly 
be assigned, the people of Nineveh were believers in a divinity who, 
from time to time, sent messages to them by a personage who rose out 
of the sea as part fish and part man. 

This being so, is there not a perceptible reasonableness, or logical 
consistency of movement, in the narrated miracle of Jonah in the 
fish, and the wonderful success of the fish-ejected Jonah as a preacher 
in the Assyrian capital? 

" What better heralding, as a divinely sent messenger to Nineveh, 
could Jonah have had, than to be thrown up out of the mouth of a 
great fish, in the presence of witnesses, say, on the coast of Phoenicia, 
where the fish-god was a favorite object of worship? Such an inci- 
dent would have inevitably aroused the mercurial nature of Oriental 
observers, so that a multitude would be ready to follow the seemingly 
new avatar of the fish-god, proclaming his uprising from the sea, as he 
went on his mission to the city where the fish-god had its very center 
of worship. And who would wonder that when it was heard in Nineveh 
that the new prophet among them had come from the very mouth of a 
fish in the sea, to bring them a divinely sent warning, all the people, 
'from the greatest of them even to the least of them,' should be ready 
to heed the warning, and to take steps to avert the impending doom 
proclaimed b}^ him? 

i In short, if the book of Jonah is to be looked upon as veritable 
/history, it is clear, in the light of Assyrian records and Assyrian tra- 
ditions, that there was a sound reason for having Jonah swallowed by 



Why Effective? 139 

a fish, in order to his coming up out of a fish; and that the recorded 
sudden and profound alarm of the people of an entire city, at his 
warning was most natural, as a result of the coincidence of this miracle 
with their religious beliefs and expectations." 

The same author also notes another point that seems to have 
direct bearing on the subject in hand, to-wit, the fact that Berosus 
gives the name of the Assyrian fish-god as "Cannes." Now, "while 
' oannes' is not the precise equivalent of the name 'Jonah,' it is a form 
that might naturally have been employed by Berosus, while wo-iting 
in Greek, if he desired to give an equivalent of Jonah. " 

Scholars know, too, that both the Septuagint and the New Testa- 
ment prefix I to the word, so that in the Old Testament Greek, both 
the Hebrew name Yohanan and the Hebrew name Yona are repre- 
sented by loANNEs; and in the New Testament, the name Jonah is 
rendered by both Ionas and Ioannes. Is there not, then, in these 
resemblances of words, both from the earlier Assyrian monuments 
and the later Babylonian historian, incidental proof, at least, of»the 
entire naturalness of the narrative of Jonah at Nineveh? 

Dr. Trumbull says again: "It would certainly seem to be true 
that if God desired to impress upon all the people of Nineveh the 
authenticity of a message from himself, while leaving to themselves 
the responsibility of a personal choice as to obeying or disregarding 
his message, he could not have employed a fitter method than by send- 
ing that message to them in a way calculated to meet their most rever- 
ent and profound conception of a divinely authorized messenger." 
It does surely seem most reasonable that Jonah's life should be miracu- 
lously saved from the storm just in the way it was, and not in a differ- 
ent way. 

But another point should not be overlooked. That is, the bear- 
ing that these "modern discolsures of Assyrian life and history," 
so happily applied by the wTiter just quoted, have on some other 
correlated matters. 

One is, the added emphasis which these well known facts give 
to the Savior's statement: "Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites. " 
He was, indeed, a startling sign to them. Considering their long and 
strongly rooted beliefs, and also the fact that Jonah's route in coming 
to them lay through experiences that just fitted into the mould of 
their beliefs, it is easy to see how the}^ would be immediately and deeply 
affected by his visit and warning. He was a striking sign to them that 
he was from God; a sign of God's judgments, a sign of his mercy. So 
they might well fear him, and might also rightly cherish hope. 



140 The Story of Jonah. 

The fact that Jonah was a stranger, that he belonged to another 
country, that he was in rude garb, thiat he only cried one thing, was 
nothing to them, comparatively. It was every thing to them that 
he came out of the sea, as they held their chief god Dagan and suc- 
cessive avatars had come. This at once thrilled them. This whelming- 
ly moved them to give instant and reverent heed to his message. 

Another bearing of these inwrought Assyrian beliefs impinges on 
the argument of objectors to the miracle of Jonah. Some scholars, 
who readily accept as true the Bible record of miracles generall}', yet 
are slow to accept the verity of the account in Jonah's case. They 
contend there is "seeming lack of sufficient reason" for such a miracle 
as his preservation in a great fish. There was no necessity for this, 
they say. His life might have been saved, and he returned to duty, 
by having the vessel that carried him driven back by contrary winds 
to the place of starting. Thus they avow their opinion. 

And then they go on to point out an evident reasonableness in 
th»case of other Bible miracles, which shows them to be clearly differ- 
ent from mere fables and myths and "lying wonders" of any age. 
They allow that these are ever super-natural, but never unnatural. 
Citing the miraculous plagues of Egypt in proof, they contend that 
there was a special reason for the form, or character, of each one of 
them. Beginning at the first, which was a "stroke at the popular 
river god, and passing on up to a stroke at the royal sun-god in 
the heavens, and terminating with a stroke at the first-born, or priestly 
representative of the gods, in every house in Egypt, 'from the first- 
born of Pharaoh who sitteth upon the throne, even unto the first- 
born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill, and all the (conse- 
crated) first-born of cattle,' no one of these was a mere reasonless 
display of divine power." Each miraculous stroke, though a super- 
natural, was yet a reasonable, display of "the supremacy of the God 
of the Hebrews over the boasted gods of Egypt. " 

In like manner, too, after Pharaoh was subdued, and had granted 
release to captive Israel, whom God promised to bring out of bondage 
with a mighty hand, Moses was not directed to wave his rod high 
over the heads of the people in order that, after the fashion of 
stories in the Arabian Nights, they should be transported tlirough 
the air, and set down in Canaan," but, having brought them to the 
borders of the Red Sea, God instructs "Moses to stretch out his rod 
over the sea, in order tliat its waters may divide, and make a pathway 
for the Hebrews; and again to stretch it out, in order that the waters 
may return for the deluging of the Egyptians." 



Why Effective? 141 

And so of other Old Testament and all New Testament miracles. 
All those wrought by our Lord, (say objectors to the miracle of Jonah), 
are most reasonable in their supernaturalness. He never exerted 
almightiness unnecessarily, or uselessly. He never tried to impress 
people by the " sill}'' marvel of making clay figures walk or fly; of turn- 
ing stones into bread, or of killing naught}^ boj^s by a word or a wish. " 
The pm'pose of his exercise of supernatural power was always apparent 
and most reasonable. This was ever true, whether he wrought a 
miracle ''for the increase of food, for the healing of disease, for the 
restoration of life, or for the quieting of the disturbed elements of 
nature." 

The objector thus claims that no other miracle recorded in the 
Scriptures is so seemingly unnecessary as this account of Jonah being 
swallowed by a fish, for here, they claim, there is no visible connec- 
tion betvv^een the mode of his rescue and the purpose of it. And 
besides this, the same discreditor of Jonah avers that it is essentially 
improbable that the people of a large heathen city would be so soon, 
so deeply exercised by the simple religious message of an obscure 
foreign prophet. Hence he discards the m-iracle altogether. 

But is it not clear that this whole class of scholars have been leav- 
ing out of view entirely all these undoubted facts of history about 
Assyrian beliefs and character. Taking these facts, however, into 
the account, as the}'' surely ought to be, how plain it is to the unpreju- 
diced, that, having such intense and superstitious inwTought beliefs, 
so mercurial a people as the Ninevites were, v^^ould, under the power 
of God's Spirit, be more surely exercised in the exact manner they were 
by one coming to them just as Jonah did — alive, and so directly out of 
the bosom of a fish in the sea. 

The whole thing is suitable, reasonable, wonderful, just like a 
work of him "who only doeth wondrous things." ''Great and 
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Who shall not fear 
thee, and glorify thy name?" 

"Deep in unfathomable mines 

Of never failing skill, 
God treasures up his bright designs. 

And works his sovereign will. 
" Blind unbelief is sure to err, 

And scan his work in vain; 
Be is his own Interpreter, 

And he will make it plain. " 



142 The Story of Jonah. 

One lesson for us in closing is: In christian work among the 
unconverted aim at conviction. This is needed as a forerunner of 
conversion. In true repentance, grief over sin ever precedes turning 
from it. Whatever may have been Jonah's motive as he proclaimed 
his message in Nineveh, his words produced intense conviction, and 
this led to the turning of the whole populace to God. Thousands on 
the day of Pentecost, pricked in their heart for sin, with soul-filled 
anxiety asked: ''Men and brethren, what shall we do?" and, being 
instructed, were soon rejoicing in the Lord. Fear not the sinner's 
conviction. A law-work in the heart often issues in great blessing, 
as in the case of these Ninevites. 

Another lesson : believe God's word. Believe it implicitly, believe 
it fully. Believe it just as we have it. It is no harder to accept the 
miraclft of Jonah than to accept that of the three men saved from the 
seven-times-heated flaming furnace without even the smell of fire upon 
them. No harder than to believe that a man four days dead should, 
at the authoritative call of the Son of Man, walk forth from his tomb, 
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and yet alive and well. No 
harder than to believe any other miracle. Accept them all. And if 
doubt ever tries to creep in, cry out with the distressed father plead- 
ing for his afflicted boy at the foot of the transfiguration-mount, 
"Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." 

And once more: Trust God in obscurest providences. In all 
dark, surging, and billo\vy trials, ever hear his words of cheer: 

" When tlirough the deep waters I call thee to go, 
The rivers of woe shall not thee o'erflow; 
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless. 
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. 

"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, 
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply; 
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design 
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine." 



Displeased 



But it displeased Jonah exceedingl}^, and he was very angry. And. 
he prayed unto the Lord, and said: I pray thee, O Lord, was not this 
my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before 
unto Tarshish: For I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, 
slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. 
Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it 
is better for me to die than to live. — Jonah 4:1-3. 

My God! how fearful is the fight! 

Within my heart two spirits wage; 
One seeks alone thy heavenly light. 

And every thought with thee t' engage. 
The other scorns thy sovereign will, 

And dares revolt against it still. 

Oh, grace! Oh, ray of love benign! 

Shed o'er my heart the balm of peace; 
With thy benignant power divine 

From thy dark foe my soul release, 
And make this slave of death to be 

A voluntary slave to thee. 

— Racine. 



XV. 

DISPLEASED 

Very unexpected, indeed, even surprising, is it to read next of 
Jonah's grief at God's merc}^ It displeased him exceedingly, and he 
was very angry that God spared the Ninevites. Astounding! The 
modern christian heart, alive with missionary zeal, warm with love 
for souls, cannot understand it. For an evangelist, a preacher, a 
prophet of God, proclaiming God's own message to sinners till the}- 
deepl}' repent, and angels in heaven rejoice over them, while he, the 
favored vv inner of them, is so disappointed at the result that he sulks 
and complains over it, is certainly the strangest thing ever marring 
man's service of God. 

Jonah's case is an anomaly. Pardoned himself, he is unwilling 
others should be. A late monument ol God's mercy on his own repent- 
ance, his heart refuses mercy to penitent believers, as well as to inno- 
cent children, and even to dumb animals. Surely, the New Testa- 
ment lesson, taught in the parable of the forgiven, but unforgiving, 
debtor, was most suitable for him then, as it is now for every one of 
like temper. 

True, the words, " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain 
mercy" and those other words, "Dearly beloved, avenge not your- 
selves, but rather give place unto wrath," were not breathed from 
heaven just in that form till seven centuries after Jonah's day. But 
long before he lived, God had given his charge through Moses : " Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, I am the Lord;" and through Solo- 
mon: ''Sa}^ not, I xAll do so to him as he hath done to me, I will 
render to the man according to his work. " And besides this, the Lord 
himself, whom Jonah had declared to the startled sailors he feared^ 
because he was " the Lord, the God of heaven, who hath made the sea 
and the dry land," had sent him to Nineveh for the very purpose of 
bringing about the conversion of its people. That conversion has 
now marvellously taken place, but he, the chief instrument in its 
accomplishment, is grievously unsuited with it. " He is displeased 
exceedingly, and very angry." What he wished was the overthrow 
of the city. Not so much, perhaps, that he desired its destruction, 
as Israel's safety. His mind is mainly on his own people. Not fore- 
most on Nineveh, at all, perhaps, but mainly on the land of his fathers. 
What will be best for God's heritage in Israel? That was the con- 
stant brooding of his heart. 



146 The Story of Jonah. 

Several things, doubtless, weighed upon his mind. He possibly- 
thought of his own reputation. The thought, "if Nineveh is not 
destroyed I will be counted a false prophet," may have kept so ring- 
ing in his heart as to make him vengeful. 

Or he may have been influenced by a commendable, though mis- 
taken, zeal for God's glory. It probabl}^ looked to him as if God would 
be dishonored by not keeping his word, and overthrowing the city, 
according to the proclamation yvhich he, as a prophet of the Lord, 
had been solemnly commissioned to declare. 

But, doubtless, the main things moving him were, first, that he 
strongly shared with his own people generally, in the unfounded 
prejudice cherished against all Gentiles. This unworthy feeling led 
them to consider all the mercy shown by God to other nations as just 
so much mere}'' deducted from themselves. 

And then, second, Jonah very probably considered Nineveh as a 
formidable enem}^ to his people, and, in that view, he wished for its 
destruction. Were it overthrown, as threatened, it would never 
become the oppressor of Israel. Already its people, and those of the 
country of which it was the capital, had crippled his country. They 
were still a constant menace to her on the north. And he may have 
known, or have had a strong presentiment, that they, if spared, were 
destined, sooner or later, to be the conquerors of the ten tribes, whom 
as a kingdom he loved. So he deeply regretted that he had been 
made a messenger of mercy to his beloved country's enemies. These 
enemies he wished destroyed rather than saved. For then, as he 
thought of it, his own people would be safe. 

The third thing which so greatly exercised him was, probably, 
his cherished idea and hope that God's judgment inflicted on the 
Ninevites might be a warning that Israel would heed. He heartily 
wished to see his own people penitent and saved. And his notion 
was, that only some striking judgment of God on some neighboring 
nation would startle Israel from her present desperate degeneracy, and 
bring her back in penitence to God. All other means, so far, had 
failed to do this. 

When, therefore, he proclaimed the downfall of Nineveh in forty 
days, the lively thought of his heart was that God was now about to 
give the example so much needed. But when mercj'^ interposed, and 
Nineveh was spared, his cherished hope was blasted. He was greatly 
disappointed. Despairing of the reformation of Israel, he is utterly 
cast down. Entirely failing to grasp Jehovah's widely beneficent 



Displeased. 147 

and far-reacliing purpose for his own people, and for the gentile world, 
too, he complains in peevishness and petulancy: ''I pray thee, O 
Lord, was not this my saying, when yet in my country? Therefore 
I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God, 
and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest 
thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my 
life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live, " As much as 
to say: 'This is about what I expected. I knew thy character of 
mercy and long-suffering; knew it when I was called the first time. So 
I tried to get away. I fled before I should come into such an emergency. 
I anticipated just such a result as this, and escaped beforehand to 
avoid it. I did not wish to declare from the mouth of the Lord that 
the city should fall within forty days, and then have my words prove 
false. Neither did I desire my beloved people to lose the lesson of 
thy severe judgment on Nineveh, nor yet, to have Nineveh spared 
to be Israel's future oppressor. I cannot bear the thought of this. 
So, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me. ' 

Wretched man! His words are fearful. Such boldness before 
God, while himself so grievously wrong, is appalling. ''It is awful," 
says Cowles, " that a sinner, plucked himself as a brand from the burn- 
ing, should object to God's showing the same mercj^ to his fellow 
sinners. Why did he not rather rejoice and shout for joy, when he 
saw the king and people of Nineveh on their faces before God— his 
warning pressing them effectually to repentance, and the clouds of 
gathering vengeance swept away by the hand of love?" Instead of 
this, however, he complains, and asks that his life shall end. But how 
could he think himself prepared to die in such a temper? His request 
is rash, most thoughtless, petulant and wicked. 

What shall the answer of God to such presumption and glaring 
irreverence be? Hear how gentle it is. In dignity and self-control 
it is high above all human reproof of sin. "Doest thou well to be 
angry?" That was all God said then. How wonderful the divine 
patience! The question only gently hints reproof — "you do not well 
to be angry. " 

Instead of a direct charge, however, the words simply ask Jonah 
to judge himself. Their import is: 'Look at the case all round. 
Marvellous mercy has lately been shown you. It is the divine charac- 
ter, too, as you have just acknowledged, to show mercy to penitents. 
Therefore, franklj^, in your own opinion, is it becoming for you, under 
the circumstances, to be angry?' In majesty and lofty kindness 
God spake in substance only that. 



148 The Story of Jonah. 

Years later our Lord reproved James and John for their proposal 
of punishment upon some who refused to receive him. God now, by 
his mild interrogation, suggests to Jonah his anger is much amiss. 
Yet it is to be carefully noted; the divine reproof is not against the 
prophet's strong desire for the good of Israel, but that his feeling is so 
turned ageanst the Ninevites. He might love his own people passion- 
ately. He ought to. But no hatred of others ought to be cherished. 
Only hatred of sin is excusable. Moses anger was right when he broke 
the first tables of the lav/, for his feelings then rose in horror against 
the sin of making the golden calf. 

In like cases christians maj'^ be angry and sin not. If they are 
angry, not with men, but with the sins of men; if they persecute, not 
men, but the vices of men; their anger is right, their zeal is good. But 
if they are angr}-, not with sins, but with men, their passion is ungod- 
like, and their zeal most faulty. It becometh each minister and 
christian worker, then, to be ahvays watchful, and whenever irritably 
exercised, to hear from heaven the heart-probing question: "Doest 
thou well to be angry?" 

In the case before us, Jonah seems to have made no answer to 
the Lord's gentle rebuke, but to have continued still sullen and hard 
hearted. 

We are to understand that he is still in the city. There he might 
have sta,yed and done good. There were penitent people all about 
him. Doubtless, too, the Ninevites were disposed to treat him well — 
even hospitably. Moreover, the mass of them were in such a subdued, 
inquiring mood, his remaining among them might have been very 
helpful, as he mingled with them endeavoring to confirm them in their 
good purposes, and to instruct them in the truths and worship of God. 
But he was not the strong, evenly balanced, and faithful man, to rise 
to such an occasion. 

He may have, indeed, received some intimation that the city 
would be spared. He at least inferred it, as he says, from what he 
well knew of the merciful character of God towards true penitents. 
That the overthrow would be averted he really believed, and yet in a 
measure seems to have doubted. What curious bedfellows then 
occupied his heart. Snuggling side by side were faith and doubt 
where only one at a time can usally lie. So far did he doubt the city's 
preservation that he is unwilling to venture to stay in it, lest he may 
perish in its overthrow. Yet so far did he believe it would be spared, 
that he is already exceedingly displeased with God for his mercy. 



Displeased. 149 

Silenced, however, b}' the gentle, yet heart-probing inquiry of his 
Lord; unwilling, apparently, to associate with the mourning populace, 
he hurries away, as if he meant to " shake off the dust of his feet as a 
testimony against them. " 

But the place he sought was not distant. He only went to a hill 
top outside the limits, perhaps the highest near by, from which he 
could see well over the city, and behold its overthrow should it occur. 
Forty days, however, are going to be a long time to endure the intense 
sun-heat of that summer sky. So, he " there made him a booth, and 
sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the 
city" — as if this question were still in suspense. Strange! strange! 
to us having the whole Bible, and with our modern floods of christian 
light, passing strange, surely, was this poor man's posture of mind! 
None at present can fully understand his motive or feelings. 

Can it be supposed he thought : ' possibly the Lord will hear my 
prayer and expostulation, and will turn again to execute his first 
sentence of destruction?' Or shall we conceive that he construed the 
Lord's question, thus — -'^ Doest thou well to be angry so soon?" ' Have 
you waited long enough yet to see the result? — long enough to be 
sure of what I am going to do? " Or, was his course sufficiently account- 
ed for by the fact that he knew, from God's past method of procedure, 
that chastening judgments often followed, even when sin had been 
repented of, as in Da^^d's case when reproved by Nathan? 

Whatever may have most influenced him, he is evidently now in 
a pitiably mixed state of mind and heart. In spite of all God's late 
mercies, and marvellous dealings with him; in spite of his own peni- 
tence and prayer which gained him deliverance from death in the fish; 
in spite, too, of the fact that after his rescue, he had been recalled, and 
had boldl}^ delivered God's message to the Ninevites, — in spite of all 
this, and more, he is now in a great conflict. The law in his mem.bers 
is warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity 
to the law of sin which is yet in him. Still far from being filled with 
the Spirit; far from glad acquiescence in God's will as to Nineveh; 
rather expecting the city to be saved, yet hoping it may fall, he stays 
outside, at a convenient distance to see the outcome. 

There, while he is "^Tetchedly putting in a period of time, we may 
view his surroundings, peek inside a little at the somber man, and 
pick up what practical lessons may appear. 

The place he chose for his tent was on the east side of the city. 
We are told he went out in that direction. Coming on his mission 



150 The Story of Jonah. 

from Gath-Hepher, he would approach Nineveh on its west, or south- 
west, side. Already have we seen that as soon as he entered its portals 
he began his cry of warning. Advancing through the heart of the 
city, he may have passed entirely to its opposite suburb, or nearly so, 
in the one day he preached. So that now, when he decides to await 
the issue, it would be natural for him to go on eastward. There, on 
an elevation, choosing a spot suiting his purpose, he built his temporary 
home. 

The record tells us this was a booth. And it is learned from other 
sources that a booth is a small, temporary structure made of twigs 
and leafy branches of trees. In was so openly formed as to admit the 
air and wind, but close and compact enough to keep out the direct 
rays of the sun, and furnish a pleasant shade. Shelters like this were 
occupied by the Children of Israel each year, for one week, during the 
feast of tabernacles, or harvest home. The purpose of such a leafy 
bower was to add to comfort by providing protection from the exces- 
sive heat. In addition to this, however, in this case of Jonah, the 
booth was soon converted into a school house and a sanctuary. God 
made it a "school of discipline to give him more enlightened views." 

Unwillingly there receiving his wonderful lesson, who would not 
pity him? Like home-sickness at college, or in the army, a similar 
dreadful feeling had seized upon the pitiable man, and held him in a 
grip he thought he could not throw off. The chief trouble was he did 
not want to throw it off, and so tried not. He hugged the ugly night- 
mare to his bosom; nursed it into more and more life, till he began to 
think he would rather die than live. He even prayed to God to take 
away his life. But the poor man was self-deceived. He did not 
know his own heart. He really did not want to die then. Else why 
didn't he stay in Nineveh, and perish in the overthrow he was expect- 
ing for it? No, Jonah knew well that God would not answer that 
prayer, and take away his life. So he prayed it. But his words did 
not express the sincere desire of his heart, as when he formerly cried 
from his entombment in the fish. From one in so exceedingly sorry 
a mood withhold pity who can? 

And yet he was guilty, very guilty. Well may we earnestly seek 
that none of us shall ever be left to come into such a sad state of mind 
and heart before heaven, and our fellow men, as the one we now con- 
template. 

This, then, is something of the character belonging to that per- 
verse scholar, in that summer booth, on that Assyrian hill top, well 



Displeased. 151 

on tov/ards three-thousand years ago. And this may be considered 
one of the practical lessons taught by this part of the narrative. Whilst 
not excusing the man's inexcusable naughtiness, be sorry for him in 
his pitiable mood. 

But another thing suggested by the story is: Unfortunately 
inconsistent people may often do good. This was true of Jacob and 
of Jonah, as well as of Peter and of Silas. The good, however, tliat 
m^ay at any time go out from such people, does not at all excuse their 
inconsistencies. It makes it the more lamentable that these exist, 
and the more important that they should be cured. When good is 
done by a v/eak and faulty brother or sister, then proof is apparent 
"that the excellency of the power is of God and not of man." The 
Lord does not bless any worker's inconsistencies, though he may often 
bless his own truth handled by such a worker, — may even bless, the 
parts of the worker's conduct that are exemplary. Much better, how- 
ever, would it be, if all faultiness was gotten rid of. Each should 
earnestly strive and pray against all in his own conduct that, in any 
measure, may be likened to " a B.y in the ointment of the apothecary. " 

A third lesson is: Those who in sullen mood desire death, are 
generally the least prepared for it. Jonah's posture of mind and heart 
wholly unfitted him to appear before God on high. Most suicides 
are the worst kind of murderers. Some, it is true, are unbalanced 
in mind, greatly to be pitied, and should have harsh judgment with- 
held in their case. But it is to be feared that the majority are guilty 
of most terrible wickedness. May God graciously give a different 
mind to any and all who allow themselves to be wretchedly tempted 
to self-murder. 

Moreover, farther, gloominess is often our own fault. Not seldom 
we beget for ourselves uneasiness, low spirits, and worry. Jonah's 
unhappiness followed naturally from his own unwisdom and rebellion. 
His mind was set on his own ways. Not on the Lord's. Hence dark- 
ness and disappointment overtook him. Each servant of Christ 
should ever watchfully guard against sowing folly, so that he may not 
be compelled to reap the bitter fruits. 

But another shade of the same lesson is: Pride and anger are 
blinding. The}^ render people quite incapable of perceiving the most 
glaring absurdities in their own conduct, and dispose them to vindi- 
cate the most daring rebellions. Obtuse, at such a time, to their 
own faults, they think the wrong is all in others. Jonah even blamed 
God. He did not see himself at all as he really was, and could not 
while in that frame of mind. 



152 The Story of Jonah. 

Nor was his an isolated case. Like specimens have appeared in 
every age, and may be found to-day. Often very inconsistent them- 
selves such persons seem totally blind to the fact, while they are worried 
and upset generally over other people and their ways. To such people, 
a sincere friend, wishing their betterment, can hardly, with profit, 
venture to drop a kindly word of caution or advice. It being clear, 
in most cases, that the chief fault is in the fault-finder, about all that 
often can be done is to let him alone, with the hearty prayer that the 
Spirit of Light would soon reveal to him his unfortunate self. Well 
may every christian seek to be delivered from such a blinded and self- 
ignorant state. Each should ever bear in mind his ovm large need 
of the pardoning mercy, the atoning blood, and the new-creating Spirit 
of the Living God. 

But a closing important lesson is: Never scold at Divine Provi- 
dence. If we could alter our Heavenly Father's way, it could not be 
for the better — only for the worse. Jonah's plan was far inferior to 
God's. It called for the destruction of vast hordes of dumb brutes; 
for the destroying, also, of one hundred and twenty thousand as yet 
unsinning little children; and with these, for the destruction of hun- 
dreds of thousands of truly penitent adults. He would liave all this 
take place by the withholding of God's mercy, and would have the 
divine judgment fall in spite of Nineveh's penitence. 

Jonah's plan was one of vengeance; God's one of mercy. Jonah 
proposed by a judgment on Nineveh to frighten Israel to repentance; 
God's way was by the sparing of Nineveh to teach Israel, first, the 
inexcusablenss of their own impenitency, and the certainty of their 
ruin if they did not turn from their sin; and second, that repenting 
Nineveh was more worthy of God's favor than apostate Israel. God 
knew that the tidings of Nineveh's penitency and rescue vv'ould be 
far more fitted to recall Israel to his service than the news of its over- 
throw. 

And besides this, God also meant, by the preservation of that 
Gentile city on its repentance, to furnish a lesson of hope to the peni- 
tent, and of condemnation to those amid outv/ard privileges impeni- 
tent, to all people in after times to all ages. Jonah's mind did not 
grasp this, nor in any measure foresee it. Nor did he foresee how 
the Messiah, eight-hundred years l;\ter, would thus apply this very 
history. So his proposed change in the divine procedure would not 
only be a vast blunder, but also most derogatory to the character of 
the Great Rulfr over all. 



Displeased. 153 

But the reach of the divine plan was vastly wider still. God 
gave Israel a lesson in love. But Israel did not profit by it, and will- 
ingly return to his service. So she, as a nation, was overthrown, 
and carried away into captivity. But even that was not an unmitigated 
evil. Jonah, outcast, was much honored of God in doing good in this 
heathen city. So Israel's outcast condition would not hinder her 
serving God's cause through every one of her people who remained 
faithful. This was so of many in Babylon. Ezekiel, Daniel and others 
were shining lights among those who had carried them away captive, 
and who knew not Jehovah. So w^ere Ezra and Nehemiah and not 
a few like them at a later day. And still later, the Jews, scattered in 
all lands, as witnesses for the true God, pioneered the way for Chris- 
tianity, so that it spread more rapidly than we can conceive of it 
doing in any other way. It was all of God's gracious overruling and 
mercy. 

The lesson is, we need to beware lest in dark exigencies of life, 
we become guilty of Jonah's sin of murmuring against a kind Prov- 
idence, and peevislily wishing a change. Our way would be a way far 
inferior to our Heavenly Father's who seeth the end from the begin- 
ning, and who ever doeth all things well. 

No human being, however wise, can govern God's world better 
than God himself. Amazingly short sighted and presumtuous would 
he be who proposed to try it, as virtually does every one who quarrels 
with providential procedure. The dire need in every case is, by the 
gracious work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, to have our hmnan wills 
brought into sweet subjection to the blessed Divine will. Then we 
will not repine as Jonah. Then our rejoicing will be ever in the Lord. 
Then however dark be our trials, we will sing with the utterly lonely, 
the blind and palsied "Schmolck, after the loss of his home by fire, and 
the death of his wife and all his children: 

My Jesus, as thou wilt! 

may thy will be mine; 
Into thy hand of love 

1 would my all resign. 
Through sorrow, or through joj^. 

Conduct me as thine own; . 
And help me still to say. 

My Lord, thy will be done. Amen. 



Disciplined. 



And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up 
over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him 
from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. But 
God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day and it 
smote the gourd that it withered. — Jonah 4:6, 7. 

Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son 
whom he receiveth. — Hebrews 12:6. 

Many christians are like chestnuts — very pleasant nuts, but en- 
closed in very prickly burs, which need various dealings of Nature, 
and her grip of frost before the kernel is disclosed. — Horace Smith. 

Often when God sees how the sand, (of love of the earth and of 
our own ways), is keeping us from rising into the pure and stimulating 
atmosphere of the higher life, he takes it out of us by some providential 
dispensation. — Senex Smith. 



XVI. 

DISCIPLINED 

The training was by an Expert — a Brill-Master unequaled — a 
Disciplinarian using skill par excellence — a Teacher whose work is 
always masterful. 

The place of training was in a leafty bower just outside of Assyria's 
capital. There over two thousand six hundred years ago, a naughty 
scholar was taught. There he found his summer school. 

The booths of the Children of Israel in the wilderness were the 
first and original Chautauqua. In these early tabernacles, the sam.e 
Teacher as now met with, instructed, and guided an assembly of tardy 
learners. This frail tent near Nineveh was a later, and yet, back 
from the present, a really ancient "hall in the grove." 

The school held in it, however, differed from modern institutes 
not a little. It was not prepared for with long and careful arranging. 
It was not widely advertised beforehand — not advertised at all. It 
was but meagerly attended . Yet, out from it went such hallowed 
influences, as have been a blessing to the world ever since, and as will 
be sure to go on with cumulating power for good as long as truth needs 
to be taught, and scholars need to learn it. 

Yes, summer schools now-a-days are, in most points, very differ- 
ent from this one in Assyria eight-hundred years before Christ. Often, 
at the present, instructor and pupil are very much alike in desire, 
purpose, and plan, even in disposition. In this long-ago case they 
were as dissimilar as wisdom and folly, holiness and sin. The scholar 
was human, the Teacher was divine. The scholar was self-willed, 
rash; unreasonable, provoking; the Teacher patient, benignant, wise. 
The scholar easily gave way to his feelings; the Teacher had infinite 
self control. The scholar is churlish, sullen, fault-finding, speaks 
unadvisedly with his lips, even complains of the Master's methods in 
an outspoken, inexcusable way; while the Master's reproof and expos- 
tulation are marked by the utmost gentleness and forbearance, as he 
wisely proceeds to give just the lessons then most needed. The 
scholar was not there simply on his summer vacation — to get rest and 
benefit together, but for a blame-worthy purpose — to see the near-by 
city overthrown; the Teacher came, not for financial gain, but solely 
to do good to the sole pupil, to the pupil's people, and to all others for 
all time. The scholar's name was Jonah; the Teacher's name was God. 



158 The Story of Jonah. 

The method of the Great Teacher that day well deserves study. 
He taught by object lesson and orally; by symbol and in direct terms; 
by argument and by inference. His plan was to correct and instruct 
the lone scholar by an acted parable, in which the scholar himself 
should bear a chief part. Hence in rapid succession there follow each 
other the Teacher's tender expostulation, the brisk springing up of the 
.shade-producing gourd, its quick v/ithering away, the burning wind 
from the desert, the complaining wail of the fainting scholar, and, 
close following, the masterly interpretation and application of the 
parable by the Infinite Teacher. 

The first step, while Jonah was yet in the city, it would seem, was 
gentle expostulation. "Doest thou well to be angry?" As much as 
to say: 'Is it needful, or nice, for you to be so grieved in heart, and 
so gloomy over this affair with Nineveh? Is not the trouble mainly 
in you?' 

The Teacher wished the scholar to look at self. Kindly he would 
hold up before him the picture of his own peevish heart, so discom- 
posed and unreasonable in its complainings and impatient wishes. 
In the frame of mind then present, Jonah was altogether overlooking 
the good done, and counting as of little consequence the glory of the 
Divine goodness and mercy. So the Great Instructor patiently, but 
sincerely, expostulates with him. 

He, however, seems to have made no reply, but rather very soon 
to have gone out of the city, and built a booth for shelter while he 
waited. There the Divine Master followed him, — there took his 
second step in discipline. In surprising kindness he caused a rapid- 
growing gourd to spring up, and furnish a still denser shade "over 
(Jonah's) head to deliver him from his grief." 

Eastern travelers tell us this gourd-tree was the castor-oil plant, 
which grew rapidly to the height of ten or twelve feet. Its botanical 
name is recinus. But because of its very large leaf it is generally 
called the palm-clirist, that is, the palm of Christ. It had but one leaf 
on a branch, but as it had many branches, and each leaf was over a 
foot in diameter, the whole number furnished a fine shelter from the 
heat. The verse says: ''The Lord God prepared it." That is, for 
one thing, he "appointed" it. It doubtless also means, he caused its 
naturally rapid growth to be miraculously hastened. It "came up 
in a night." 

We are, however, not at all to suppose that our Lord created 
the plant for the occasion. The words do not so mean. The approved 



Disciplined. 159 

thought is that he chose for his present special purpose that which 
already existed in nature, and exerted increased almighty power on it, 
so that it reached maturity much quicker than usual. 

This, in fact, is the mode of nearly all the Divine Worker's miracles. 
They resemble, though they exceed, what men call nature, — that is, 
what is ordinarily seen to take place. Cahdn well states the thought 
when he says: ''We know that God, when he does any thing beyond 
the (ordinary) course of nature, does, nevertheless, come near to nature 
in his working; he does outdo the (usual) course of nature, and yet 
does not desert it altogether." And then he adds: "In this case 
(of Jonah's gourd) I do not doubt that God chose a plant which would 
quickly grow up even to such a height as this, and j^et, that he sur- 
passed the wonted course of nature" in causing it to "come up in a 
night." 

Our Lord did not forsake the course of nature when he turned the 
water into wine at the marriage feast of Cana. Trench on the miracles 
quotes Augustine as happily saying: The Lord Jesus was then "work- 
ing in the line of, (above, indeed, but not across or contrary to) his 
more ordinary workings, which we see daily around us, — the unnoticed 
miracles of every day nature." "He made wine that day at the 
marriage, * * * who every year makes it in the vines. For as what 
the servants had put into the water-pots was turned into wine by the 
working of the Lord, so, too, what the clouds poiu* forth is turned into 
wine by the working of the same Lord. This, however, we do not 
wonder at, because it happens every year; its frequency has made it 
cease to be a marvel. " The ordinary very quick growth of the palm- 
christ, does not surprise us, because this is no new thing. But when 
God brings such a plant to its full size in a few hours, we call it a miracle. 

Most beneficent was the divine purpose in working thus in this 
case. For then, after a single night, the full grown plant threw out 
its grateful shade over Jonah's head. It must have been timely, for 
the verse says: " He was exceeding glad of the gourd. " 

This was the second step in the Great Teacher's plan of instruc- 
tion and discipline in the unique case we ure now considering. 

But the third step was not tardy. " God prepared a worm when 
the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it wither- 
ed." In a very little while its dense shade was gone. It came up 
with marvellous swiftness, and perished as soon. Again employing 
natural means and accelerating them, the Lord God used a worm — 
the deadly enemy of the recinus. It so wounds the root of the plant 
that it withers at once. 



160 



The Stoky of Jonah. 



Or, perhaps, the insect is to be thought of in the collective sense 
as we speak o "the fly," or "the weevil" in the grain. aZT^:; 
wr.tes. On warm days, when a small rain falls, black caterpillars 
are generated m great numbers on this plant, which, in one nigh so 
of.en and so suddenly cut off its leaves that only th<Sir ribs remlin 
wh,cn ha™ often observed with much wonder, as though tCe a' 
copy of that destruction of old at Nineveh." At anv rate, whether 
by worm at the root, or by myriads on the leaves, the" deadly work Is 
qmckly wrought and the comforting shadow is no more It wa 
God who d.d .t. He prepared the worm. He is working all along 
and workmg wondrously. «""'«. 

^nJT I'i! """" '*'!■ " '=>*™duces a condition almost unendurably 
worse or the recreant waiter. "It came to pass, when tl>e sun did 

ZVTff TT"." ''"'''"''''' '■"'' ^■'^'^' -"d the sun beat upon 
the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and asked for his life to die " The 
poor man ,s in a sorrowful plight, indeed. Layard says:' "Few 
European ravelers can brave the perpendicular rays of an Assyrian 
sun. But besides th,s Jonah felt the wilting power of this "hot 
stormy and smgularly relaxing and dispiriting" east wind Vio- 
lence, however, is not always an accompaniment of such a simoon 
In the margm of our Bibles the word vehement is translated "silent "' 
The re^nsed vers.on reads "sultry," which is probably the true mean- 
ing. Thomson, m his "Land and Book," writes "We have two kinds 
of sirocco one accoinpanied by vehement wind which fUls the air with 
dust and fine sand. " The other " is of the quiet kind, and often more over- 
powering t. an the other. There is no living thing abroad to make a 

th !.: n .^' ''' 'V^' '''*''^' *^''''^- The fowls pant under 

the .alls with open mouth and drooping wings. The flocks and herds 
take shelter m caves and under great rocks. The laborers retire 
from the fields, and close the windows and doors of their houses. While 
travelers hasten, as I did, to take shelter in the first cool place they 
can find, ^o one has energy enough to make a noise, and the very 
W " T^f '"^ ?^'''' *" '"' *''" P^"'^'^"* '«''™« °f the tall pop- 

of the occurrence of such a quiet, sultry, "burning heat" in the very 
early part of the day as the usual time for it 

wit^t"'' ^.'^'" ^'T *,° *'°'' °' "^ *'*' ^'^''^ "^-"^ "PO" Jonah 
w th so great power that he well nigh succumbed. He prayed to be 

allowed to die As the mind has power over the body, so often has 

the body great power over the mind. Jonah's gloomv mental state 



Disciplined. 161 

was no doubt much intensified by the physical strain he was enduring-. 
The sixth verse says God meant the shadow of the gourd to " deliver 
him from his grief. " And it did cheer him. He "was exceeding glad 
of the gourd." 

But now that, not only is its grateful shade gone, but the sirocco 
has also come, '' like the breath of a great furnace, " he loses all strength 
and courage. "He fainted, and wished in himself to die." Liter- 
ally, "He asked for his life to die." The meaning seems to be that 
the prophet, recognizing that his life is not his own, but God's, asked 
for it as a gift or boon, that he might do with it what he pleased, — his 
desire being that, with God's permission, it should be given to death. 

In such a wish Jonah may have had before him the cases of Moses 
and Elijah, each of whom, in utter weariness of life, uttered the same 
prayer for death, but each with better cause and with nobler spirit. 
No one of the three, however, attempts to take his own life. Each 
felt he dare not do that. His life was not his own. It was entrusted 
to him by God, only to be given up at God's bidding, or in accordance 
with his will. 

If Jonah was thinking of Elijah, who lived not so many years 
before him, he ought to have remembered how very different their 
cases were. True, in some things, they were alike. Both were weary 
of life. Both wished to die. Both expressed their wish in the same 
words. But here the resem-blance ends. Elijah's was a noble dis- 
appointment; Jonah's an unworthy one. Elijah thought his mission 
fruitless, Jonah saw his successful. To Elijah all his preaching, 
miracles, toil, and sufferings seemed to be in vain, and to add to his 
people's guilt. Jonah saw God's kingdom extended even to the 
heathen world, and should have rejoiced for that. Elijah grieved 
because he had failed in his efforts to convert and save Israel. Jonah 
because he succeeded in converting and saving Nineveh. 

The more we look at Jonah, the more we feel sorry for him, and 
at the same tim.e the less we feel like framing excuse for his conduct. 
His prayer to die, and his averment: " It is better for me to die than 
to live," is each really a complaint against God, who is dealing with 
him in a most lofty and merciful way. 

The acted parable here ends. But the infinitely wise and patient 
Teacher soon hastens to apply the lesson of it. His next step is a 
repetition of his former expostulation. " Doest thou well to be angry?" 
he again tenderly asks. But this time he narrows his question to a 
single issue. "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?" And 



162 The Story of Jonah. 

Jonah, in his unreasoning irritation, accepts and answers the inquiry 
on that one issue, and thus unwittingly prepares the way for the 
unanswerable argument of Jehovah which follows. 

A literal translation here reads : " Art thou rightly angry for the 
palm-christ?" Jonah replies: "I am rightly angry, (and that) unto 
death. " As much as to say: " My anger is so great that it well nigh 
kills me, and even in that excess it is justified by the circumstances." 

Plain it is that he is yet far from being subdued. He seems deter- 
mined to nurse his despondent feelings, and false views, and not let 
them leave him. Well for him was it, and well for us it is, that the 
Great Teacher ''knoweth us altogether" — ^knoweth our frame, and 
remembereth how frail we are. This only will account for the wonder- 
ful display of the divnne patience that day. 

But the next step will still more fully show the divine forbearance 
and love. God now graciously condescends to argue the case with his 
caviling servant. Would he have spared the gourd merely for his 
own convenience and refreshment? and was he angry and rebellious 
when it withered, though it was not his work or property; though it 
had cost him no labor; and though it was naturally of a swift growth 
and a withering nature? Yes, he would do this: and was it not right 
that the Lord should spare Nineveh, in which were so large a number 
of his creatures, rational and irrational, formed by himself, in the dis- 
play of his loving power, and for the purposes of his glory? If all the 
people of that city, who are capable of knowing good from evil, with- 
out one exception, were deserving of the severest punishment, and 
ripe for vengeance, yet there were no less than one hundred and twenty 
thousand infants there, incapable of "knowing their right hand from 
their left," who were as yet free from actual sins, and would Jonah 
find fault with Jehovah for sparing the city for their sakes? Must all 
these innocent ones suffer without mercy? Then, too, there was also 
very much cattle in the city, and God must have regard for these as 
far more valuable than a withering gourd. 

So the Lord loftily argues. His words set out vegetable life on 
the one hand, and animal life on the other — a shrub against a babe or 
a lamb. For the shrub Jonah had done nothing to enlist his sympa- 
thies. But God implies that he has made all these infants and lambs, 
too, to grow; and that he has been watching over them with a Father's 
tender care, and so has good reason to be deeply interested in their 
well being. 

Jonah is met on his own ground. His thought rises no higher 



Disciplined. 163 

than mere human sentiment; his concern reaches no farther than to a mere 
thing of the world which soon passes away. The higher, moral ground 
he totally omits. Hence God leaves out of his expostulation all refer- 
ence to the repentance of the Ninevites, and condescends to argue with 
the captious prophet only on the lower ground. ''Shall not I spare 
Nineveh, t-hat great cit}^, wherein are more than six score thousand 
persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left 
hand; and also much cattle?" If Jonah has pity on a single plant, so 
short-lived and easily withered, surely the Lord God will show com- 
passion to the thousands of never dying souls, and the other thousands 
of unsinning dumb animals in Nineveh. Not bringing into considera- 
tion at all, at the timie, the divine and ever unfailing mercy for peni- 
tents, the whole condescending reasoning of the Lord goes to show 
Jonah to be very wrong in heart to fret and murmur as he did. 

.This, then, is the main lesson given to that unwilling scholar by 
the wisest of Teachers, in that self-built booth, on that far past day. 

The account suddenly ends. But the very abruptness of its close 
is more strikingly suggestive than if the thought had been followed 
out in detail. Jonah had nothing more to say. There was nothing he 
could properly say in excuse for his conduct. On the other hand, there 
are reasons for thinking that the whole truth all at once now flashed 
upon him; that he saw himself deeply criminal for being so much con- 
cerned about his own ease, comfort, and credit, and so unconcerned 
about the honor of God and the benefit of his creatures. There is 
reason to suppose that he was now fully silenced and humbled and 
learned true submission; and that, being made to know the evil of his 
own heart, he was soon prepared to serve God in the prophetical office, 
with greatly more humility and propriety than he had ever done before. 

These inferences seem allowable, first; from the fact that he 
writes the whole account in detail without a word of excuse for him- 
self. Then, second: His prayer, contained in the second chapter 
of his book, put in written form after this date, is strongly suggestive 
of a pious mind, under a severe trial of faith. And third: Our Saviour 
mentions Jonah as a prophet, and as a type of himself. See his words 
in both Matthew and Luke. 

But, stayed here in our study by the sudden closing of the narra- 
tive, we may well yet linger a little longer with a few lessons for our- 
selves. 

One is that of the soul's value. Even cattle are worth more 
than gourds. The soul is worth infinitely more still. For the sake 



164 The Story of Jonah. 

of ten righteous people God would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah 
from dire destruction. The grass of the field which, though so insig- 
nificant and evanescent, is 3^et clothed by God with surpassing beauty, 
is referred to by our Lord as an undoubted proof that the Creator of 
All will care for the unspeakably more precious bodies and souls of 
men who are to live forever. One soul is of more value than the whole 
world. Much more, then, surely, is it more priceless than sparrows, 
or lilies, or castor-beans. 

The point of the comparison in our storj^ is: the need that Jonah 
had for the foliage of the gourd a type of the need God's cause had for 
repentant Nineveh. As the shadow of the gourd just then was neces- 
sary for Jonah's comfort — almost for his life — so now, since Nineveh 
as a city fears God, and turns to him, his cause needs it — needs the 
lesson of its pardon and preservation — and would suffer if the lesson 
was spoiled by tlie city's overthrow. The honor of his eternal charac- 
ter as a merciful God demanded the sparing of Nineveh when penitent, 
infinitely more than Jonah's temporary need called for the sparing of 
that wide-spreading palm-christ with its grateful shadow. Souls are 
to live for ever. Gourd-shades are evanescent as the morning dew. 
So immortal souls infinitely excel in worth. 

But again; How quick-fading often are human joys and comforts. 
It takes but little to wither our gourds. A worm, or the east wind, 
may do it in an hour. All mere earthly blessings are: 

"Like snow flakes on life's river, 
A moment seen, then gone forever. " 

Then why is the heart so much set on them? Discontents, mur- 
murs, contentions, and despondings are all too common, and often are 
about such trifles that the cause of them needs only mention in order 
to complete exposure. The Lord takes from us what was never proper- 
ly our own, and was not likely to continue with us, as this bean-stalk 
over Jonah. He sends, or permits, a little pain, or reproach, instead 
of everlasting misery and contempt, and we think we " do well to be 
angry," and even break our hearts with im.patience. So we speak and 
act as if our grief were inconsolable and our wound incurable. 

Some even rashly vvish for death v/hen in so rebellious a frame of 
mind. All these things are inexcusably bad and reprehensible. Deep 
down in our hearts it should be remembered and felt that when our 
gourds are gone our God is not gone. Gourds grow rapidly, and fade 
as soon. God is from everlasting to everlasting. Gourds hurry hence. 



Disciplined. 165 

God waits to be gracious. His mercy endureth forever. The mother 
may forsake her sucking child, but the Lord will not forget thee, O 
down-hearted child of his. His ringing word is: ''I have graven thee 
upon the palms of m}- hand, thy walls are continually before me." 
Wliy, then, be so grieved over worldly jo3'S and comforts that are often 
so short lived? 

And this suggests a third lesson, — "Hope thou in God." "De- 
light thyself also in him. " He is thine everlasting portion. He will 
maintain thy lot, and, in liis own time, give thee an inheritance among 
all them that are sanctified. When he withers our gourds it is for 
our good. He means us thereby to learn that he alone is the durable 
portion of our souls. And it is when we come to realize this that we 
are first blest with the "rest of faith." "We who have believed do 
enter into rest." This is the way to live. Here lies the secret of 
life's content and joy. In this experience and assurance each soul 
may find at once sustaining peace. Sincerely and ever, then, its song 
may be — 

" Though waves and storms go o'er my head. 
Though strength and health and friends be gone, 
Though joys be withered all and dead, 
Though every comfort be withdrawn, 
On this my steadfast soul relies; 
Father, thy mercy never dies. 

Fixed on this ground will I remain. 
Though my heart fail, and flesh decay, 
This anchor shall my soul sustain. 
When earth's foundations melt away; 
Mercy's full power I then shall prove, 
Loved with an everlasting love." 



The Purpose of it All 



Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preach- 
ing that I bid thee. — Jonah 3 :2. 

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 
—Mark 16:15. 

Church of our God! arise and shine, 
Bright with the beams of truth divine; 
Then shall thy radiance stream afar. 
Wide as the heathen nations are. 

— William Shrubsole. 

O light of Zion, now arise! 
Let the glad morning bless our eyes, 
Earth's millions catch the kindling ray, 
And hail the splendor of the day. 

— Leonard Bacon. 



XVII. 

THE PURPOSE OF IT ALL 

Perowne shows that the book of Jonah is a well defined drama. 
To see this to be true is not hard. A little study soon makes clear 
that the story is cast in dramatic mould. There are three distinct 
parts, or movements, which may properly be called Acts. Each follows 
the other naturally; compliments it exactly. The successive unfold- 
ing of these three Acts heightens the interest, and cumulates the instruc- 
tion to the end. Each, as well as the whole, which they together make 
up, is clearly the work of a Master's hand. 

Turning our thought to the first movement, or Act, several things 
clearly appear. First, the central figure is Jonah himself. Second, 
the theme, or subject, is his conversion. Third, the several scenes 
in the Act are, the Flight, the Storm, the Trial by the Ship's Crew, the 
Casting Overboard, the Prayer, and the Deliverance. Fourth, the 
words at the beginning, and those at the end of the Act are very sim- 
ilar. "Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, saying: Arise, 
go to Nineveh, — But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the 
presence of the Lord." "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah 
the second time, saying: Arise, go unto Nineveh. * * * So 
Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the 
Lord." The prophet is a changed m.an. Self-willed and refractor3/ 
at the opening of the Act; at its close he is submissive and obedient, 
but not yet fully consecrated, as the sequel soon shows. 

Passing to the second Act, we find attention directed almost 
exclusively to "that great city" Nineveh. The absorbing theme here 
is the repentance and salvation of its myraid people. The city, great 
in populace and importance; vast in wealth, magnificence and area, 
which fancy can easily fill in with parks and vineyards and gardens 
and crowded m.arts, humxble dwellings and royal palaces, stands vividly 
before us. In quick and life-like succession, scene follows upon scene. 

First, a lone and humble-garbed stranger enters Nineveh. He 
comes " as a voice crying, " not in the wilderness, but in the city. We 
watch for his deeds, and listen for his words, but see no act except his 
deliberate and persevering advance through the city, and we hear 
only his one earnest, and oft repeated cry, "Yet forty days and Nine- 
veh, overthrown. " This is the first scene in this Act. 

The next soon follows. Thousands are in sackcloth. Even the 



170 The Story of Jonah. 

king puts aside his robe, and sits in ashes. In every part of the city 
lamentation, mourning and woe abound. As in Israel afterwards, 
"All joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone." Fasting replaces 
feasting. Even the herds and flocks are made to show signs of the 
general sorrow and humiliation. All business halts. All pleasure is 
stayed. The whole city becomes " one vast temple of penitence and 
prayer. " 

Then, quickly succeeding this scene follows the next, and last of 
this Act. The people's prayer is heard. Their penitence prevails. 
Their homics are spared. "The stream of their life, purified and re- 
newed, returns to its accustomed course. The cloud that hung threat- 
eningly over their city is dispersed, and the sun shines forth upon it 
again." "And God saw their work that they turned from their evil 
wa}^, and God repented of the evil, that he had said he would do unto 
them: and he did it not." Deeply absorbing is the moral grandeur 
and impressiveness of all this. 

But the highest point of the teaching is not yet reached. There 
is another section of the history before the end comes. This forms 
the third Act of the triple series. And as in the first Act, so here in 
this last, the chief character is again the prophet himself. 

Behold him first, "displeased exceedingly" at the outcome of his 
mission; irritated and complaining, weary of life, and praying that he 
may die. View him next awaiting outside the city, in a booth he had 
there built on the hill side, that in it he might shelter him from the 
sun's burning rays, while, with evil eye, he watches the fortunes of 
the cit}^, which he really wished overthrown. Behold him " exceeding 
glad" of the gourd, which God mercifully caused to grow in a night 
to shield him from the scorching heat, and, soon again, vexed and 
angry even unto death when the plant suddenly withered, and its 
welcome shade was gone. Look at him once more with no less interest, as 
the lofty argument of Jehovah, contrasting the perverse man's mur- 
murs over mere shortlived plant, with the blessedly divine and exalted 
compassion over the populous city of Nineveh, convinces him of his 
grievous error, and completely silences all his complainings. 

These four, quick following each other in this final Act, or section 
of the book, are lively scenes portrayed with the same brevity and vigor 
as before. All the movements in the history form one grand drama, 
having a single lofty and overtowering purpose, and at the same time, 
very clearly, several subordinate and minor ends. 

One interesting and real, but secondary, design of the book becomes 



The Purpose of it All. 171 

clear by looking into the New Testament. There, as a previous chap- 
ter has shown, we find our Lord regarding Jonah as a type of himself. 
He declared : " For as Jonas was tliree days and three nights in the 
whale's belly, so shall also the Son of Man be three days and three 
nights in the heart of the earth." |;. ^ 

By these words Jesus would teach his hearers and all people to 
see in the story of Jonah, for one thing, "a. historical parable — a 
prophecy in act. " 

Undoubtedly, then, since such a Teacher so taught, we may hold 
this to be one of the undeniable, yet subordinate, ideas of the book, — 
Jonah tj^ical of Clirist — Jonah jorefiguring Christ, in his burial especial- 
ly, and also in various other clear resemblances. Jonah was low and 
friendless among his hearers on ship-board and in Nineveh. So was 
Christ in Judea, and whereever he went. Jonah was voluntarily a 
victim to death, (as the sailors thought), for sin — his own sin. So 
Christ was a victim to real death in the room of those whose sins he 
had voluntarily taken on himself. The sacrifice of Jonah brought 
calm and safety to the endangered seamen; so the sacrifice of our Lord 
on the cross brought spiritual calm and eternal salvation to countless 
millions who received him, and will yet receive him, as their Substi- 
tute. As Jonah was entombed three days and three nights in the bosom 
of the fish; so Christ lay just as long in the heart of the earth. As 
Jonah was, on the third day, miraculously rescued from threatened 
death; so was Christ, after an equal period, miraculously raised from 
real death. As Jonah went forth from his living prison to preach to 
the Ninevites; so our Lord, after his resurrection, went forth not in his 
own person, but yet in his mystical body, the church — through the 
agency of his people — to preach the gospel in all the world. As Jonah's 
entombment and delivery gave weight to his message; so Christ's 
death and resurrection are the only foundation for repentance and 
salvation. And for hope, too. For as God's mercy in restoring 
Jonah, vfho deserved death, gave the Ninevites hope of mercy for 
themselves; so Christ's resurrection assures all sinners that God is now 
fully reconciled to man by Christ's death as man's Sin-offering and 
Substitute. His giving of himself a Ransom imparts assured efficacy 
to true repentance and hope. Hear it all may, in the ringing word of 
inspiration : " He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give 
repentance and remission of sins. " 

In all these points did Jonah prefigure Christ. Our Lord, how- 
ever, seems to emphasize the central three — the burial, the resurrection 



^72 The Story of Jonah. 

and his after mission. With the mind fast fixed on these, the pregnant 
words of Paul may be cherished as simiming up both the subordinate 
and the main teachings of the book, when he declares to Agrippa and 
the rest, that the very essence of the instruction of Moses and the 
prophets, (Jonah among them,) is: "That Christ should suffer, and 
that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should 
show light unto the people (of Israel), and to the Gentiles." 

The second part of this inspired affirmation of the Apostle, just 
quoted, to-wit, that Christ, after having suffered and risen again, 
''should show light * * * * unto the Gentiles," suggests the main 
and LEADING PURPOSE of Jouah's prophecy. Over and above several 
varied and secondary teachings of the book towers forth this high, 
central thought — the call of the Gentiles into the church of 
THE living God. 

As already stated in a previous chapter, the plain narrative in this 
short book of what God did in sending Jonah to preach to the Ninevites 
is but a fore-gleam of his lofty, world wide and heaven born purpose 
for the future. The gospel, at that early day given to the people of 
Nineveh, was a pledge in advance that the same gospel — only in its 
richer, clearer and m.ore blessed fullness — would, in the latter days, 
be given to all the heathen. By this sacred drama and wonderful 
history God teaches this truth; by it forecasts his future course for the 
salvation of a lost world. His design from the beginning, shown in 
the mission of Jonah, was, in his own time, to give the gospel to all 
nations. 

This loving and merciful purpose has been shown in his procedure 
ever since that far back day. As the centuries have come and gone, 
he has, all along, in his own benign way, been executing his eternal 
purpose of mercy to sinners outside of his church as as well as in it. 
Two hundred and sixty years later, by his purposeful providence, 
he gave Daniel and others to heathen Babylon, to fearlessly proclaim 
the truth of heaven in the ears of its kings and idol worshiping people. 
In the Apostle's day, six hundred and fifty years later still. Foreign 
Missions began to grow in all directions as never before. The expan- 
sion was the Lord's doing. In the Synod at Jerusalem, called to con- 
sider important questions growing out of this aggressive work, Peter 
in his address affirmed " Men and brethren, ye know that a good while 
ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should 
hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knoweth the 
hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost even as he did 



The Purpose of it All. 173 

unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their 
hearts by faith." It was God who did it, he argues. 

The audience, now much interested, gives close attention next to 
Barnabas and Paul, "declaring what miracles and wonders God had 
wrought among the Gentiles by them." Then James the just, the 
eminent man of God, under the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, 
focussed and held the best thought of the council, while he showed that 
all this success of Peter, Barnabas and Paul, in winning the Gentiles 
by the gospel, was, undoubtedly, in accordance with God's unchanging 
and gracious purpose, as declared by hianself in Amos 9:11, 12; "After 
this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which 
is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set 
it up." And for what purpose? He answers: "that the residue of 
men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my 
name is called, saith the Lord who doeth all these things." 

From all this how clear it is, that the nations of the earth are to 
seek after God and be called by his name. So thought, and so decided, 
t'at Spirit-guided Sjnod in Jerusalem that day. 

Then, too, the divine will is shown in the progress of the church 
ever since. It best grows only when it is widely aggressive. In the 
wonderful success of Foreign Missions of the present day, our God is 
speaking aloud his approval of giving the gospel to all the Gentiles. 
In Jonah's dsiy he gave a foreglimpse of these days. He then gave 
a masterly lesson concerning his eternal will and purpose for all men. 
Those who have the gospel are bound to give it to all vv^ho are desti- 
tute. This beneficent will and purpose vv^as most specifically enjoined 
by our Lord when, am^id circumstances m^ost im^pressive, in the very 
crisis period of the world's history, he gave the church her great com- 
mission- "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
creature." The calling and mission of Jonah was one of the early 
teachings showing the divine will to be that the Gentiles are to be 
called into the fold of God's people. 

In farther proof of this, mark closely the superior, and more than 
human, way by which our Heavenly Father, back in that early day, 
prepared the worker for his work. Jonah's flight, his arrest by the 
stormx, his experience with the sailors, their changed views and con- 
duct under his solemn v/ords, his entombment in the fish, his penitence 
and prayer, his delivery on the land, his second call to the same mis- 
sion, — all these show how the infinitely wise and wonder-working 
Jehovah specially prepared him for success in delivering the divine 



174 The Story of Jonah. 

message committed to him to carry to a people of the peculiar preju- 
dices and training of the Ninevites. 

A being of infinite love, patience and power has endless sovereign 
ways of preparing laborers for the harvest he has for them to gather. 

In Jonah's case, we may carefully note that the wonderful way 
he was dealt with and disciplined brought him from unwillingness 
and rebellion to true repentance, and to the bold carrying out of the 
great coromission with which he was solemnly charged. That his 
penitence was genuine we may undoubtedly gather from the narra- 
tive. Only a Spirit-changed, Spirit-taught heart could offer prayer 
like that he breathed up to God from the fish's belly. Nor is it beg- 
ing the question to hold that, under the circumstances, only a really 
penitent man would be re-commissioned, by Him who knoweth the 
heart, to the very work he had before shirked, that is, to go to Nineveh 
and preach its overthrow. 

His later exceeding displeasure at the result is harder to explain, 
but seems to have been only temporary, and accounted for, in part, 
perhaps, by his over fatigue; may be, also, by his hunger after his long 
march, and also by the wilting power of the excessive heat, enfeebling 
his body and dispiriting his mind. God's tender patience and kindly 
reasoning with him is surel}' a sign that he counted the weak man his 
own child. And Jonah's after faithful penning of the whole account, 
including his own badness in all its details, without a word of self 
excuse, is to be taken as proving the same thing, that is: Jonah peni- 
tent, and though still a weakling in grace, yet used of God for a special 
and highly responsible service. 

Then, too, as already suggested, the true repentance of the be- 
stomied ship's crew was suited to be a help in preparing Jonah for his 
work. The marks of a genuine and thorough change in those much 
exercised seamen were most evident and convincing. When their 
long experience told them that the tempest which then "lay upon" 
them was, indeed an unusual one, and when on the top of this, they 
heard Jonah, with great dignity, reverence and force, declare: 
"I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and 
the dry land," their views and feelings at once experienced a great 
revulsion. Sincerely and humbly they now prayed, no longer to their 
own gods, but to Jehovah the true God. Subduedly they submitted 
to his will in casting Jonah, the runaway and strangely-behaving pas- 
senger, into the sea. Immediately, too, they worshiped the true God, 
— "offered a sacrifice unto Jehovah, and made vows," is the record. 



The Purpose of it All. 175 

We are to understand they offered a sacrifice right then, and promised 
other acts of worship in the future. 

How lasting were these fresh impressions, and long continued the 
new religious practises of these late coverts, we are not told. No 
word, however, in the whole inspired narrative ever even hints that 
the great change wTought in them was not real. As far as we are 
capable at all of judging, they '' brought forth fruits meet for for repen- 
tance. " 

^ Now, this remarkable change in them would give Jonah a lesson. 
It was calculated to influence him to obey God's call to go at once to 
Nineveh and preach the preaching that was bidden him. He ought 
to hope that, upon hearing the same message he had proclaimed to 
the sailors, the Ninevites would experience the same marked and 
mighty change. 

-3;And the same is true, also, of all the other wonderful experiences 
of the prophet on the ship and in the sea. One design of all was to 
help prepare him for his God-given mission; and the trend of the teach- 
ing of all was, and is, to add weight to the thought that the leading 
purpose of the book of Jonah is to foreshadow the call of the Gentiles. 

- g^^ut advancing, note next that this same idea about the regnant 
design of the book receives additional enforcement from the fact of 
Jonah's remarkable success in his mission. That success was, indeed, 
phenomenal. Soon after receiving his unparalleled lessons in prepara- 
tion he preached to the people of Nineveh, and they at once, and truly, 
repented, So taught our Lord. He thought worthy to single out 
from Old Testament history this case as a typical example of genuine 
repentance. He declares : " The men of Nineveh repented at the 
preaching of Jonas." And he upbraids his hearers for not repenting 
under the preaching of a greater prophet. Truly the change of heart 
wrought in the Ninevites was a real one. Their changed conduct, 
already more fully considered in Chapter XIII, convincingly showed 
this to be true. 

The point to be emphasized here, however, is that the immediate 
genuine conversion of the people of that hitherto ungodly city was an 
added corroborative proof that the central teaching of this short but 
rare book was to give striking hint in advance of God's blessed pur- 
pose to call the heathen world into his spiritual fold. 

Some interpreters have held that the main design of the book is 
to teach the nature of true repentance. In support of this view, among 
other things, they call attention to an ascending grade in the three 



176 ThK bTOHY OF JONAK. 

examples of repentance given — first, the repentance of Jonah, an in- 
dividual; second, the repentance of the seamen, a company, and third, 
the repentance of a nation, the Ninevites, in whom is potently seen a 
turning from false v/orship and bad ways to the true worship of the 
true God, — a change of heart that wrought a change of life. In each 
of the cases, clearly appears the nature and the blessed results of genuine 
repentance. 

Now, all this, of course, is interesting. Moreover, the truth of it 
is readily admitted. But at the same time, the prepondering weight 
of most approved opinion has long been that, while each of these cases 
undoubtedly holds an important place in this acted prophecy, 3^et they 
do not occupy the chief place, — only a secondar}' one. They are but 
a part of that higher and wider lesson which it is the lofty purpose of 
the book to set forth and enforce, to wit: the calling of the Gentiles 
to be a part of the Lord's people. 

But another subordinate 3'et important purpose of the book be- 
speaks consideration at this point. 

Wrapped up in, or rather, inseparably interwoven with, the main 
teaching of the book, is clearly the unmistakable lesson of decided 
rebuke to Jewish exclusiveness, A little thought will make this 
clear. Israel had an unfounded prejudice against all non-Israel. 
Despising the Gentiles was their prevailing habit. They considered 
all heathen as outside of God's covenant. Hence they were accus- 
tomed to deem God's mercy as shown to any other nation or people, 
as just so much a deduction from their own privileges. This proud 
contempt was often intense. It was always unloving. It was a 
grudging, narrow-minded, unhallowed feeling. It denied all favor 
from the God of Israel to the Gentile world. It was the spirit of the 
elder brother in the parable jealously scolding at all favor shown the 
repentant prodigal. In his fourth chapter and second verse, Jonah 
confesses that he was actuated by this spirit. This unhallowed feel- 
ing was, undeniably, the source of all his unAvorthj^ conduct, as described 
in the narrative. His disobedience at first, and his displeasure after- 
wards, sprang from this cause. His effort to divest himself of the 
prophetical office, rather than obediently use it in proclaiming God's 
message through him to the Nine\'ites, is to be traced directly to this 
harsh and unamiable spirit. This, too, it was that called forth his 
complaining murmurs and ungenerous anger at the reprieve granted 
Nineveh on its repentance. 

But, guilty himself, Jonah v/as commissioned to reprove this spirit 



The Purpose of it All. 177 

so universal among his people. Hence his book sets it forth in unvar- 
nished form. The ugliness and inexcusableness of this spirit, having 
been forcibly flashed upon him by God's gracious discipline, he hastens, 
by faitlifully using his own personal history, to set it forth clearly, 
in all its deformity and wrong, as a lesson to his own people and to 
others. All through his book he exalts the Gentile in comparison with 
the Jew. The heathen sailors in the storm are contrasted favorabl}'- 
with himself, a prophet of God. So are the penitent Ninevites, with 
unrepentant Israel. Such, at least, is the implied teaching. Nineveh 
penitent was a reproof to Israel impenitent. That Jonah may the 
better teach his people the lesson assigned him, and which it is so 
important the}'' should learn, he shows a noble forgetfulness of his 
own reputation, and " is content to pass out of view, at the close of the 
book, silenced and disgraced. " 

Clearly e^ddent, therefore, is it that, to reprove the Jews for their 
narrow-mindedness, and their harsh exclusion of the Gentiles from 
God's mercy, was one part of the divine purpose in inspiring Jonah 
to WTite the book called by his name. 

Now, having all these varied teachings before us; and especially 
taking the central and leading thought of the book to be, as we have 
seen, the calling of the Gentiles into the church of the true God, we 
observe vividly how this view lifts the book to a higher plane, gives 
unity to the whole composition, and, at the same time, adds force and 
lustre to its several dramatic parts, and its several secondary teachings 
This view, too, amply justifies the claim of the book to a place in the 
canon of the Old Testament prophecy. The unskeptical, reverent mind 
must ever consider that " the history of Jonah is a part of that great 
onward movement, which was before the law, and under the law; 
which gained strength and volume as the fullness of the time drew 
near; but which could only find its consummation in the incarnation 
and work of Him in whom all distinctions of country and race were 
to be forever broken down, in whose name repentance and remission 
of sins were to be preached among all nations; in whom all nations of the 
earth were to be blessed; who was to be at once a light to the Gentiles, 
and the glory of his people Israel. " 

In approaching, therefore, our conclusion, recalling to mind all 
the lofty lessons before us in the preceding discussion, how spontaneous- 
ly rises the exclamation, what a pregnant book is this brief, but often 
misunderstood and greatly undervalued prophecy! 

We have seen that it is veritable history — everj^ incident and state- 



178 The Story op Jonah. 

ment it contains being true. We have looked at The Man in all the 
weakness and inexplicableness of his character, have seen him Called, 
Truant, Bestormed, Overboard, Swallowed, Preserved; have heard 
him Praying and Quoting Scripture; have viewed him Delivered; have 
listened to him Preaching; have noted the marked Effects of his mis- 
sion; have considered Why his short and oft repeated sermon was so 
Effective; with astonisliment have been inclined to turn away from 
him Displeased; have looked on him in pity as loftily, mercifully, and 
yet effectually he was Disciplined by Him who at first called him, and 
patiently, lovingly and wondrously dealt with him all the way through; 
and then, summing up, we have considered the Main Purpose of it All 
to be our Beneficent Father's matchless lesson, given in that early 
day, in that most wondrous way, of his graciously benevolent purpose 
of sending the gospel to all the Gentile nations of the earth. 

We have also noted how the divine Teacher did, in close connec- 
tion with this chief teaching, also, at the same time, rebuke Jewish 
Exclusiveness, give striking lesson on true Repentance, show Jonah 
a Type of Christ in varied marked particulars, and wondrously embrace 
all these instructions in lofty, swift-moving, and telling dramatic 
pictures, calculated to blessedly impress the mind and heart. 

^ Surely, 3^ea, most surely, for all this, most devout and hearty 
praise and thanksgiving are ever abundantly due from every soul of 
man. Blessed is he that readeth, and with new consecration of heart, 
and new interest in the eternal Father's most marvellous way of unfold- 
ing his high and benign plan of redemption, ever earnestly vows these 
shall be whole-heartedly rendered, and ever keeps paying his vows 
as the da3''s come and go. Amen. 



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